Guns & Roses: The Commencement
by Oceanbourne
Summary: Machinery malfunctions, mysterious portals, and whispers of an ancient enemy, long defeated, threatening to return. Amidst the preparation for the Grand Ball, the most prestigious event at the Institute of War, the champions of the League find themselves harried from every end as they work to ensure its success. NaNoWriMo project.
1. A Change of Seasons

It would take her years to get used to the vines, if she could ever brush them off at all.

Her partner in the bottom lane and surprisingly close friend poked at her torso with a pair of thin green tendrils, diverting Caitlyn's attention towards her leafy companion with a half-irritated glare. At least her support had fallen into a good mood today due to their win in their match which resolved a border issue between the residents of the Kumungu Jungle and Bandle City. Zyra had wanted to maintain as much of the forest as possible when Bandle surveyors had tried to weasel a claim in on the most recent maps of Valoran that a couple acres of uninhabited territory belonged to the yordle country. As such, she had called to the marksman to lend her aid, and along with the Monkey King in the top lane, the Pridestalker taking his natural place as the jungler, and the slightly unorthodox, but still effective choice of the Bestial Huntress in the middle, their team cruised to victory. The duo had pulled their own weight against Bandle's bot lane for sure, the sheriff putting on a far greater display of shooting than their renowned gunner, and as much as Lulu tried to protect her team, the ravenous plants Zyra had summoned tore the miniature team apart.

Zyra had another one of those thorny smirks on her lips, her scarlet eyes peering at her resonating with a certain inhuman energy characteristic of the magical plant-turned-human. She must have been a rather carnivorous specimen in her previous life, for the gaze she gave the sheriff of Piltover seemed like a predator stalking its prey than a friend glancing at another.

"What is it now?" she asked, a hint of annoyance in her voice.

The Rise of the Thorns extended a leafy arm towards the ceiling of the summoning room, where a curious little shrub hung from over the exit door, a three-pronged plant with red berries in the middle. Caitlyn frowned for a second as she tried to figure out what Zyra wanted to tell her, but as she remembered the date and the looming arrival of the holidays, the sheriff came to a realization.

"The mistletoe's been placed quite late this year," she noted. "It's only two weeks until Snowdown proper."

"I was wondering when they would remember their traditions. I suppose it is better late than never, though. It is important to create a cheerful atmosphere. Where there are holidays, doubtless there will be festivities." A thoughtful look came over the sorceress. "The so called 'Grand Ball' is the day before the Snowdown celebration. The summoners hold this particular event in an unnaturally high regard. Why else would they resort to placing a symbol of love in the very room where us champions would notice it every day?"

Caitlyn put a hand to her chin. "I would not have thought you so familiar with human customs, Zyra."

The devilish smile came back. "You are forgetting how powerful a being I was before I took this form. All knowledge of botany comes naturally to me, now that I have the brain of a human to better retain such information. Needless to say, I am very familiar with the properties of mistletoe and its implications. And I am very curious to witness this spectacle."

As much as Caitlyn wished she could ignore the issue and pass it off as a meaningless event, everyone at the Institute, councillors and summoners and champions alike, somehow agreed to take the arrival of the Grand Ball very seriously. Males would look for dates amongst the female population in order to gain entrance, and so during this time it became common for intricate plans and 'date alliances' to form within champion groups of the various city-states. Shauna Vayne had ranted to her about the silliness of it all, how the Exemplar had convened all the Demacian champions into a rudimentary conference so he could pair up the males and females so they could all join the ball - a proposition out of which the Night Hunter promptly walked. But despite a few antisocial oddballs like her, almost any other champion worth their weight in prestige would do all they could to attend to receive the necessary attention and acknowledgment from the summoners so they would start the new year off in good standing, with the few obvious exceptions being the entities forcefully restrained in the Institute or summoned to compete in the League against their will. Unfortunately for the Sheriff, she was neither of those categories.

"You do not seem nearly as enthusiastic, it seems," Zyra noted, pulling Caitlyn out of her thoughts. "Is it because you do not already have one of these 'dates' in mind?"

Caitlyn shook her head. At first, she didn't lack in invitations from male champions to attend the ball, but every year she found herself burdened with work back home to attend the Institute's event, to the point where the usual candidates would already know not to ask her, knowing that she would already have prior engagements. It might have been nice to attend the ball for once, and this year she hadn't had any big case to tackle in Piltover, but the work of a sheriff required being ready to adapt to situations at the drop of a hat, so she could never say for certainty if she would stay in the area until only a few days before the event actually occurred.

"It's not that, Zyra, and at this point I'm not even trying to lie. I haven't even been at the Institute for the previous three Snowdowns. Duty calls, and the protection of the city is vastly more important than dressing up all pretty for a far less significant event over here," she sighed.

"How diligent of you." Zyra's entire frame seemed to gravitate towards the mistletoe as they came closer. "And your pink-haired friend? Does she go along with you?"

"I let her enjoy herself. It is the closest thing she has to a vacation, but as of recent she insists on coming back to work with me - it seems frilly dresses and ballroom dancing wasn't her thing, which is not surprising at all," Caitlyn said, remembering how much Vi complained the first time she came back from the Grand Ball about how much her feet ached wearing heels.

"She is very much like an innocent child," Zyra remarked as the pair left the summoning chamber and walked into the dense hallways of the Institute of War. "Putting up a facade of toughness, but deep down inside easy to frustrate and lacking both elegance and patience."

"I don't think I'd go that far, but somewhere along those lines, yes," the sheriff agreed. "Still, she is the most dependable person I've ever found, and I'm very fortunate to have selected her to be my enforcer."

"If only she would pay more attention to where she is walking," Zyra complained. "I hear the cries of my children scream in anguish whenever she walks by, always trampling on the flower beds. The blossoms are a gift on my behalf to the entire community within the Institute! The least your assistant could do is show some proper appreciation."

Caitlyn smiled, imagining a scene Vi might have caused with her unintentional destructive tendencies. "I will make sure to pass your message along to her."

Their conversation ran into a sudden interruption when the pair noticed a sizable crowd convening in the hallway before parting onto either side to make way for several individuals approaching them. Caitlyn could easily make out the stature of the one on the left, a figure floating above the air clad in a full suit of golden armor, up to the headpiece: the winged angel Kayle, the Judicator. The rightmost person wore purple robes with no other distinguishable features except for a scroll and quill they carried in their hands. With their facial features covered by the summoner's hood, Caitlyn couldn't make out their identity, and she doubted she would recognize any of the scribes. The one in the center wore the traditional summoner's robes, but the white and gold gilding, as well as the ornamental headdress, denoted their high rank as one of the High Councillors. Caitlyn could point out her feminine features from a distance despite the hood obscuring her eyes, and because the High Council only boasted one female among them, she could easily deduce the summoner's identity: Vessaria Kolminye herself.

"Are they for us?" her thorny companion inquired.

"We will soon find out," Caitlyn answered as they slowed their pace down, allowing the trio to stop in front of them. The angel removed her helmet, revealing a fair yet stern face with bleach blonde hair and blue eyes. She looked nothing like her sister the Fallen Angel, who took on shades of violet and had dark hair, likely a result of the corruption she experienced when she swore herself to the forbidden dark arts of their civilization.

"Good day to you, Sheriff, Rise of the Thorns," the High Councillor greeted them.

"Zyra will be sufficient, High Councillor," Zyra smoothly replied.

"It is a pleasure to receive you and the Judicator," Caitlyn said, nodding to the angel. "To what do I have the honor of meeting with you today?"

Kolminye nodded to Kayle, and the angel stepped forward, taking over the conversation. Caitlyn marveled at her height, standing a good head and shoulders over all the other women there. The armor certainly made for an imposing appearance.

"Due to the growing number of champions receiving inductions into the League," Kayle began, "we will require a greater amount of security involving the upcoming Grand Ball. As such, I would like to request the service of the sheriff of Piltover in staying at the Institute to watch over the proceedings to ensure that the event goes over smoothly."

Caitlyn nodded in understanding. Quite a large amount of new arrivals had come in since the last Snowdown, each getting stranger and stranger in nature. When the tamest of the new arrivals was the time-traveling Zaunite youth, there would definitely be a problem. Caitlyn herself had trouble grasping the newest addition to their ranks, a being bipedal and vaguely humanoid but which wore wooly fur, not to mention it also had a canine spirit circling around it. She never knew whether to refer to the Kindred as them or her or it or any other pronoun, and their claim of being the personifications of death didn't exactly make her want to get to know them any better.

"I understand the concern. I should be able to contact the city and let them know I am on official business pertaining the League. What abou Vi?" Caitlyn asked.

"The Enforcer's help is not strictly required, but seeing as you two work most effectively with each other, her help will be a huge boon to the team."

"Very well." The request seemed simple enough, but something else had to change around the Institute besides the increased number of champions. "Have you encountered any suspicious activity or disturbances recently which has inspired this cause for concern?"

"This will be the very first Snowdown where the Institute has officially recognized a clear sovereign in the region of the Freljord," Kolminye stepped in. "Even though Queen Ashe and King Tryndamere have held the throne for a couple of years now, it has not been the strongest of rules, due to the constant challenges of war ushered by the Winter's Wrath and the leader of the Frostguard. In recent times, the internal strife of the region has died down, leading the Institute to make such an act of international recognition. Our nod of approval towards Ashe's regime has not pleased the Winter's Claw and the Frostguard, and our scouts in the north have reported movements from both factions around this time, especially concerning ones from Lissandra. Due to the much more unpredictable and magical nature of her powers, we believe we are not out of line thinking that some ulterior mischief may arise at the Grand Ball, considering both Ashe and Tryndamere are attending and making their first true appearance as the proper rulers of the Freljord."

"All this scheming and plotting for such a trivial position," Zyra frowned. "Do they not contest their domain in the way of nature like Sejuani does, fighting tooth and nail for the crown?"

"Many people believe that Ashe came out the winner in the great Freljord conflict, but people who know the full details of the war realize that it ended up more of a stalemate," Kayle explained. "Her rule is strong, but only because Sejuani has retreated and not come up with another military force in quite a while. As for Lissandra, she is hardly one to play fair and simply walk up to her opponent in plain sight. The Ice Witch is a tricky manipulator, and there are many things she may have up her sleeve. And if we can believe the signs in the stars, as the Wandering Caretaker tells us, then the once-mythical coming of the Frozen Watchers may end up being more than just an old wives' tale."

"The city of Piltover is always ready to side with the defenders of justice and peace," Caitlyn reaffirmed her position. "I accept the offer to join the team."

"Your services are greatly appreciated," Kolminye said. "Obviously, there is more to this briefing than the small overview we have given you, but I shall transmit the full dossier of information to you in private. The Judicator and I must be on our way again, but expect a more complete explanation later tonight. And be sure to get in contact with the Enforcer for us."

"Of course." With a couple of cursory nods, the High Councillor and Kayle left them, their presence still causing the summoners in the hall to part for them as they continued down the corridor.

Caitlyn dropped her shoulders in relief. "Something about that woman always makes me tense. I didn't think I'd be pulled into the internal conflicts of the Freljord, but if it's for the sake of the Institute…"

"Remember, what the councillor told us was merely speculation," Zyra argued. "It is very likely that nothing will happen at all. Even if something were to go down, I am confident a team led by the summoners and the Judicator, along with your help, will be able to handle any problem."

The sheriff managed a smile. "You're right, I suppose. Right now I don't really want to think about that. Would you still like to go for tea at the Ionians' place on the eastern side?"

"I would love to, my dear Sheriff," Zyra answered. "If there is anything to take from this incident, however, I have found something fortunate for you."

"And what is that?" Caitlyn inquired.

Zyra smiled cheekily. "You will finally be able to attend the ball."

* * *

 **A/N:** Once I thought of the title I just had to finish this story idea.

I'm putting off Crimson Tides for now (gee, another story postponed). This is my little project for NaNoWriMo, I'm not sure if I'll even be able to reach that goal but it's something. This story will have a ton of perspectives based around people attending the ball, but will center around Cait and Zyra.


	2. A Meeting of Sorts

She often called meditation a tool for the weak, but she began to envy the stable temperaments of the Ionians when she came across opponents fueled by the fire of insanity, which no amount of skill at the blade could counter.

Berserkers and drunkards irked her to no end, although she easily dealt with most variants of the latter simply by outmaneuvering them. But she still held absolute contempt for one particular class of the insane.

"Own to your own imperfections," the tattered preacher called out through the halls of the Institute, repulsing waves of summoners as Fiora Laurent marveled how any person calling themselves holy could claim to rise from the cesspool of grime and death known as Bilgewater. "Let your soul absorb this lesson, lest you let yourself fail the test of Nagakaboros."

The very words coming out of the priest's mouth caused the Grand Duelist's nose to crinkle as she turned her face away, nauseated by the very speech he gave rather than his smell. The several religious cults which existed all over Valoran boasted numbers much too large for Fiora's comfort; the masses had wasted so much of their attention getting intoxicated by the opiate that they did not bother to examine the filth which lay underneath. Deception lay at the core of any religious institution, a cornerstone which would lead to eternal wandering and confusion. How could the belief in a mythical being possibly serve to improve one's character? Fiora noticed no positive aspects of people who had pledged themselves to the service of such barbaric cults, and knew that many high-ranking members of religions would use their status to appeal to the commoners and swindle thousands out of the money which they had worked hard to earn. She remembered such an organization to exist in the times of medieval Demacia, before the Lightshield dynasty had ascended the throne and put an end to such foolishness.

Before the street vagrant could turn his ramblings towards her direction she briskly walked the other way, noting that she would have to take a longer route than anticipated to arrive at the meeting place where she would answer a summons from the crown prince himself, Jarvan Lightshield IV. Such appointed meetings happened often ever since the duelist's induction into the League of Legends, where the exemplar would often call upon her skills as a swordswoman to serve as the personal guardian for when the prince met with other champions and various people of high importance. Many knew of the prince's elite guard, headed by none other than the Half-Dragon Shyvana herself, and of its fierce dedication to ensuring the safety of the heir to the throne, but the crown had acquired Fiora through a much lesser-known negotiation. The duelist served as the ace up their sleeve, an extra man to surprise their enemies who had only accounted for the known members of the guard.

Despite their common status as League champions and her obvious proximity to the prince due to the amount of trust the Lightshield family placed in her, Fiora never actually found herself properly close to the man. They would charge her to wait at a certain location nearby and ensure that no harm ever befell the prince when he carried out his duties, and when he had finished, they dismissed her from the scene without a word. Jarvan had run into her a few times before or after her duty, giving her words of gratitude and going through the motions of typical pleasantries, but never anything more than those short conversations and the orders specifically expressed to her when she came to meetings to receive her debriefing.

And she wouldn't prefer it any other way. They had judged her as the most optimal candidate for the job because Fiora did not express any uncertainty about where her motivations lay; the head of the Laurent family cared solely to regain the honor that the sorry excuse of a father she had so shamefully wasted. The duelist held no stock in gaining the knowledge passed between heads of state which could so drastically change the political landscape of Valoran, and would dutifully hold to her word to remind the world of how a proper Laurent should act. Let the other members of the guard grow close to their prince and learn to admire the man to whom they swore their lives. Let the role of the dutiful servant and knight fall to the half-dragon, who the prince had dragged from the depths of despair in the Great Barrier. Fiora Laurent had only one allegiance, and it lay at the point of the sword she wielded.

Her thoughts had sufficiently occupied her long enough for her to reach the location of the meeting room, a nondescript door in the middle of the Demacian wing amongst a plethora of others, making locating the meeting room difficult for anyone not privy to it going on. Stowing her rapier into her belt, she opened the door to see the room already mostly occupied by a few select people; the prince sat at a chair near the end of the singular long rectangular table next to an Oriental man with black hair tied up in a ponytail - the seneschal, Xin Zhao. Near the right side of the room sat several members of the aristocracy, and while she barely spent time attending the endless galas and banquets the rest of the wealthy enjoyed, her father had instructed her to learn the names of the prominent Demacian houses should they come to call on her one day. The rather rotund Lord Beaufort seemed to be in the middle of a vigorous debate with Lord Chellion, a scrawny man as thin as his conversational partner was fat. A disinterested silver-haired woman in her late twenties who Fiora did not recognize tried to situate herself as far as possible from the aristocrats, her gaze directed towards a couple of paintings on the opposite wall.

The captain of the Dauntless Vanguard sat opposite the nobles to the prince's right with an overdone focus in his eyes which did not change when he heard Fiora walk in, showing no change even as he looked at her to acknowledge her presence for a second before turning back to watching Jarvan.

She would prefer not to associate herself with Garen Crownguard any longer than she had to.

He had no direct involvement in the disastrous fiasco of an arranged marriage which had led to the exposure of her father as a dirty swindler from the hand of honor and her sudden ascension to the head of the household, but Demacian noble families did not forget, and her refusal of the marriage in an effort to set her own destiny had not only cast her own house's reputation in jeopardy, but also left a stain on the credibility of the Crownguards. If they were not one of the most renown families in Demacia, second to only the royal family, then they should have had no problem procuring the hand of one of the daughters of another noble house in marriage, no matter how headstrong the bride-to-be might have been. But they lived with the tradition of Demacia, home of the virtuous and the timeless paragons, where people would ridicule the males of the family, not just because they had failed to secure the marriage, but because tradition laid the responsibility of managing the household on the laurels of the males, not the females. Fiora had been indignant when the talk circulated amongst the upper echelons of society, ridiculing the Crownguards for their failure. They had no active part in her fight to retain supremacy of her individuality. They did not note her victory over her father, how she had given him a worthy duelist's death instead of leaving him to rot at the guillotine, the crows gathering at the carrion call and picking at his flesh. None realized that Fiora had saved a remnant of her family's honor from being completely shattered due to her father's despicable, erroneous act, and even though her house fell from its former glory, she had steadily worked to pick up the pieces and begin the reassembly process. Instead the public had put all the blame on the Crownguards, them and her utterly idiotic father, for a marriage refusal entirely her doing.

So while Garen Crownguard himself bore her no ill will, she knew he considered her guilty by association and that if she had just accepted her fate that the puppetmasters had set up for her then the strings would have flowed seamlessly and life would shuffle her into the deck of cards to continue playing the game where the house always won.

Fiora took a seat at a chair close to the entrance, where she could sit directly facing Jarvan, and when another arrival had just come in after her Jarvan looked up from his conversation with Crownguard and cleared his throat.

"This should be all of you, then. I am sorry to have you all come here on such short notice, but I believe a short address of the upcoming events should be enough to prepare us for now," the prince spoke, gesturing to the seneschal to continue.

"The prince wishes for us to start the necessary preparations for the Grand Snowdown Ball which is to take place two weeks from now. The previous years have gone well enough, but this is the first year where Freljord has declared an official monarchy with Queen Ashe and King Tryndamere, and the two will finally be able to attend now that the civil war in the north has ended. As an ally of the new confederation, Demacia wishes to maintain its favorable relations with the Freljord and bring gifts to the newly crowned queen and king at the Ball. That itself is not the point of this meeting, for the articles in question can easily be obtained from the myriad of possession stored in the state vault.

"As per Institute traditions, any person who wishes to attend the Grand Ball will require a date to attend unless previously cleared by the High Councillors. We are here to mandate the pairing up of champions and nobles in as efficient of a manner as possible so that as many Demacians can attend."

The talk about the ball had made Fiora decidedly less interested. If they needed her presence, then she would likely just serve as a bodyguard for the prince while the event droned on the entire night, which was alright with her - she did not see the interest in dressing up and taking the dance floor with noblewomen and the other female champions. Xin Zhao took out a scroll from under the table and handed it to the prince, who unrolled the parchment and looked at the room's occupants before speaking again. "There are not many of us previously cleared to attend the celebration. As always, the Maven of the Strings, Sona Buvelle, has been selected by the High Councillors to serve as the source of live music for the event, so she will not need one of us to accompany her...unless one of you nobles is feeling particularly up to the task."

Fiora heard some low murmuring to the right of her, most likely the nobles scheming and hoping to boast about having a blue-haired beauty wrapped around their arm for at least a few minutes at the ball.

"As of last year's meeting, we shall be excluding the head of House Vayne from participating in the pairing process after witnessing Lady Shauna's… premature departure from the meeting. Moving on. The eldest daughter of House Crownguard, Luxanna Crownguard, shall be assigned to the seneschal. Xin, I am confident that you will show the lady a good time."

Xin Zhao nodded as some low groans came from the nobles.

The rest of Jarvan's list consisted of arbitrary noble pairings, a segment through Fiora almost dozed off had she not maintained the focus which allowed her to come out on top of countless duels she had fought. Only the reactions of the aristocrats to her right took away from the rather droll process, and she started to think that the meeting would have no significance to her until one of the nobles posed a question when the exemplar finished the list.

"And what of you, Prince Jarvan? What lovely lady shall find herself enchanted by your presence on such a night?" came the flattery.

Jarvan seemed hesitant to answer the question, so Xin Zhao stepped in. "The crown believes it important for the prince to select his own accompaniment to the ball, especially considering it is nearing the time where he must marry. As such, the selection is left to his own decision and he has not yet come to a conclusion on what woman, although the crown has urged him to select one of his fellow champions."

A louder murmur rippled through the room as the nobles began their mindless speculation. Fiora paid it no mind.

"If there are no further questions, then this meeting is adjourned. You are all dismissed," the seneschal told them. Everyone began to rise out of their seats to leave, with even Garen and Xin Zhao not staying behind to talk to the prince, and Fiora would have been right on their tails to exit the stuffy meeting room and head to the training rooms to get back to her swordplay if not for a telling gesture by the prince for her to stay behind. She often stayed past when everyone left, even the prince's closest confidants, for instructions specific for her to carry out. Many might have marveled how he could have placed absolute trust in a woman of a lower house, especially considering her family's tarnished heritage, but Fiora understood the motive of the crown: they did not see her as a person to connect with, merely a cloaked weapon to use against the cloak and dagger dealings at the Institute, where nothing was ever certain.

"Thank you for coming to meet with me," the prince began. "This request is… a little unorthodox, but again, it's something I would entrust to the most secretive of my guard."

"Only the command, and I shall do my best to fulfill it," Fiora replied with the calculated tone of a hired mercenary.

"Then… I would like you to assist me in acquiring a date for the ball." Here the prince broke eye contact with her, looking sheepishly at the floor.

Fiora did not think she had heard him correctly, but then immediately dismissed the thought, for she had never known for her ears to betray her. Why did the prince go to her, of all people, to ask for advice in selecting amongst the women of the League? She had no business in such trivial social matters and did not think she could give him an acceptable answer. In any case, Jarvan would be one of the last people on Runeterra to need help in such a task. Most of the females at the Institute would be delighted to serve as the date for the prince of Demacia, and if the family did give Jarvan the opportunity to select his own bride, then this would serve as the first step towards marriage which no woman in their right mind would turn down. She supposed she acted hypocritically in such a train of thought considering her own history, but the fact still stood that the exemplar of Demacia had not yet acquired a date for the ball and needed one. If such information went public, lines would instantly materialize outside this door.

All that said, why indeed did Jarvan need her help? He should have no trouble going out and tracking down a woman. As the prince of one of the largest countries on Valoran he would have spent much time getting acquainted of the female champions of various regions even if Fiora herself did not know much outside of the few she had the pleasure to face top lane. Out of those, she respected the Will of the Blades and the former Noxian exile the most. Perhaps Riven would not have been the best choice, considering her reputation, but surely Irelia, an Ionian war hero and the Captain of the Guard in her own country, would make a worthy match? Fiora had decided to use her as the name if Jarvan asked for a suggestion, but the prince turned a different direction.

"I already have someone in mind, actually…" Jarvan did not look at all like a prince with how low his voice had dropped. "But I must confess, I am unsure of how to approach her."

"Is it not just an invitation to attend the ball?" Fiora raised an eyebrow. "I do not believe it is so difficult a question to phrase."

Jarvan sighed. "That's not it. I would like to ask her, with the intent of it being more than just a partnership for the ball. I do have affections for this woman and I don't know if she will return it. Even if my father could easily arrange a marriage with any woman in the country, that's not what I want. I want her to feel the same way towards me, and I'm worried about posing the question. If my family catches on to my intent and pushes the issue of marriage, she may not return my affection but be pressured into the marriage nevertheless."

The prince surprised her. Fiora did not think that Jarvan would understand the necessity of a female to create her own free will and control her own destiny, but having encountered the same situation before, she understood his viewpoint exactly, even though she did not see the same significance of the ball as the other Demacians did. "Who is this woman, then?"

"...Shyvana," he managed after a hesitant pause, waiting for a reaction from the duelist. Fiora gave none, and indeed, his choice did not evoke a strong emotion out of her. She had no right to dictate who he should or should not love. But she still did not understand where she came in. "And what would you have me do? Shall I inquire as to whether she feels the same way towards you?"

Jarvan's eyes lit up as he jumped up in a panic. "No, no! I don't want it to happen that way. If something were to go wrong, I would fear for our friendship, and I don't want this silly feeling to break down the bond we had created ever since I found her in the Great Barrier. I just...do you think this is a good idea, Fiora? Do you think she would return my feelings?"

She could not give a profound answer, but she would not lie to him either. "I am the one who skewers a person's heart in the name of honor. I may be able to rip it out and bring it to you, but I will never be able to show you how they feel. If you wish to take her as your date for this ball, however, then you should have no regrets about exerting your power and making such a request."

The prince's shoulders dropped, and Fiora feared, as she had thought, that he did not get the enlightening answer that he had wanted from her, but what did he expect? Noble ladies might learn the art of speech through countless books and lessons at court, but the words that came off her tongue she had tempered in the fires of the blade.

"I suppose I understand," Jarvan finally said, his expression not lightened at all. "There is nothing to be gained in standing around and thinking of what might happen. The only way to resolve this is to do it myself. But I don't want it to come off as being a demand, like a state-issued sanction or anything. If she agrees, it should be out of her own volition and not as a result of my power."

The more he talked about it, the more Fiora got lost as to his position. The way he described his feelings made them feel greyer than the stormclouds which typically came over the country in April, and the more he talked, the less certain he would become. "You can control your own actions - that is the only thing you can do. What she does is independent of what you do, and what you do is certainly independent of what I can do for you. I do not think I can advise you more in the matter outside of physical action."

"That will be enough, Fiora, thank you for your assistance," Jarvan stopped her. "I guess I have to take off the rose-colored glasses, don't I? Just have to be a man and work up the courage to do it. Again, thank you for staying behind and assisting me with this. Truth be told, I didn't think you would wind up being so understanding, but I already feel better about this. A little nervous, I guess, but there's no other way to get it over with. You may leave now." With the last words, he took his leave, grabbing his lance from its position leaning against a wall and making his way out of the room.

Fiora watched him leave, observing the way he gathered himself and seeing his vulnerability the same way she saw the weaknesses of her opponents. She did not think she understood him any better.

* * *

 **A/N:** Some stuff came up which greatly delayed the writing process of this story (not to mention, messing with new season changes and finishing up ranked for the old). Even if I don't finish this by November, however, you'll still get quite a bit of chapters.

After playing Fiora a lot and seeing her strength (her stint at worlds and such) I'm really glad she's strong now, just hope she gets nerfed a bit so she falls off the permaban status. But with all the new changes there aren't enough bans to go around, and I'm really sick of seeing obnoxious stuff every game (hello Soraka). Maybe I'll finally get to play Fiora? If not, there's always Rageblade Irelia & Jax to tinker with (man I definitely called it when I wrote Trinity).

As for the chapter itself, the main thing I wanted to get across is that Fiora cannot properly sympathize with Jarvan, but the more I wrote the more I realized that in the situation I came up with, she would actually understand the issue better than I expected. I hope the discrepancy is clear enough.


	3. A Call to Peace

The no-nonsense marksman that she had as a partner for that day frowned while deactivating a couple of snap traps, stowing the snares into a large purple bag. "I don't believe I heard you correctly. You say they believed that the sun goes where?"

"A long tunnel set in the middle of the cosmos," Leona explained. "As it makes its rotation around the sky the Solari say that the reason why the sun sets is because it goes underground, in a way, before rising up again at the beginning of each day."

Caitlyn's expression didn't surprise her, for as a woman raised in a highly scientific society, her teachers surely had explained to her the wonders of the world in ways empirically proven rather than appealing to the mysticism of nature. Compared to the modernity of Piltover, the City of Progress, the Solari teachings Leona had grown up on seemed bizarrely ludicrous by comparison. For example, the tradition, according to the elders, additionally said that the sun would make its journey through the sky upon the rising of the Radiant Dawn. The flaming wheel would only fall beneath the horizon when she took her leave to rest in the land of dreams and wishes in night's stifling grasp.

Leona could believe their mythology easily enough while she grew up, but after countless late nights and many mornings where she refused to get up until well past sunrise, she found reality a far cry from the mystical view of fiction the Solari attempted to instill in their people. Truth be told, she had panicked the first time she overslept and failed to wake up at the appointed hour, fearing that her tardiness would cause some global apocalyptic event due to the sun failing to show up in the sky, but when she had opened her windows she saw the world go on as it always had. Retaining belief in their creed became more difficult starting that day.

Many thus saw the religious conclave on Mount Targon as a thoroughly closeted society which could produce only lunatics and dangerous religious fanatics, if the Scorn of the Moon was any indicator. She opposed the extremism of the elders in trying to corral their people into a certain fundamentalism, although Diana fell off the opposite end of the spectrum and eventually became just as twisted as the elders she had come to slay, a murderous crusader who took life for the sake of her beliefs. The culture at the Institute saw Leona as the only saving grace, and she knew her rise to her position did not come without a bit of irony: the Solari took her up from the ranks of the Rakkor because she defied the status quo and refused to fight in the Rite of Kor. Now she had become the figurehead for a religion that strangled its people with the rope of the status quo. Leona often wondered if gods ever stopped believing in themselves.

She had shared small tidbits of her culture with the sheriff every now and then, having first become a potent partnership due to their oppressive playstyles and then good friends. Caitlyn showed a quaint interest in the Solari lifestyle, even some of the more dubious rituals, often remarking that she would never let anything like that fly in the streets of Piltover. Leona would laugh on the outside, thankful on the inside that she had met another orderly soul to rely on in the chaotic flux which took place in the Institute.

"Do the Solari not enjoy the winter, then?" Caitlyn questioned. "Since the days are shorter and the night is longer during these months, they must hate the fact that the sun somehow spends more time in this alleged underground tunnel at a certain part of the year."

Leona had long ago come to a point where slight jabs at her religious foundation did not unnerve her. From a well-learned woman like Caitlyn, she had learned to expect the skepticism. "It is true that many of our festivals take place in the summer, and the elders do not exactly have a wintery disposition, though I suspect a large part of that comes with the biting cold which blows through Mount Targon at this time of the year. The robes of priests do not take snowstorms particularly well."

Caitlyn nodded. "And what of you, Leona? Despite the weeks off that we champions receive at the end of the year, you've always stayed around rather than go back to Mount Targon. I would have thought that the Solari require you for some perfunctory services or something similar."

If the Solari needed to lean on the Radiant Dawn for every little thing, then they would have fallen off the mountain a long time ago. "They are not so dependent as you may think. The society can function well enough without me, for that is what the septet of high priests is for. The Snowdown celebration is something I have come to greatly enjoy, and up there on that lonely mountain I cannot experience it with the companions that I have acquired here at the Institute."

"That I can be sure of," the sheriff said. "Does that mean you have attended the Grand Ball while you are at the Institute? I have always thought it would be a nice event to attend, but it so happens that I am the unfortunate one who has to travel back home to attend to duties. People may wonder at the beautiful efficiency of Piltover, but even the smartest machine needs someone to look over it, and that responsibility falls to me as its sheriff."

"I have, actually." The first year she had come to the Institute, she had not known much of the rest of the world's customs and practices, but through many matches on the Rift she had received sufficient exposure to the cultures of the rest of Valoran, from the tenacious frost warriors of the Freljord to the cheerful easy-going yordles of Bandle City. With her role as a support she had crossed paths with many of the marksmen, and in addition to becoming acquaintances with Caitlyn, she met the plucky yet reckless outlaw, Malcolm Graves. Hardly possessing even a fraction of the honor and grace that his fellow marksmen had, Leona still saw a sort of whimsical charm in the criminal, and their combination of up-front damage in the bot lane led them to countless victories as games helplessly snowballed their way, allowing for a vicious dogpile marked by sunlight and clouded by the smoke of the outlaw's shotgun which trampled over their hapless foes.

Leona had agreed to attend the Grand Ball with her lane partner her first year at the Institute as a sign of the respect she held for the Bilgewater native, even though many at the Institute showed their surprise at the matchup. But it had gone well enough, despite the pair's combined clumsiness on the dance floor. No one had ever seen the Radiant Dawn in anything less than the full suit of sungilded armor that she wore on the Fields of Justice, but that night she had sported a stunning goldenrod dress which even impressed the eyes of Katarina du Couteau, not one to hand out compliments easily. That first appearance greatly increased her popularity amongst summoners and champions alike, and in the subsequent years she had accompanied several other men to the Grand Ball, including both the Hand of Noxus and the Might of Demacia.

The appearances certainly improved her reputation, but she had never felt close to any of the men whom she had accompanied. Her appearances at the ball, while not any less enjoyable, still felt like they lacked something that her dates did not provide. The fault did not necessarily lie with them, but Leona couldn't help but feel that when she associated herself with Garen or Darius, their interactions would inevitably gravitate towards the motions of the political tides which swirled around their nations. She already had a people to protect. She had no need to get caught up in another country's problems.

"Then you are a fortunate one," Caitlyn sighed, bringing her back to the conversation. "This year, however, the Institute has requested my presence here for the duration of Snowdown, so it looks like this will be the first ball I will be able to attend. I should look forward to seeing you there."

"It would be a pleasure to share the floor with you. But does that mean there are even more pressing matters here at the Institute that you don't have to go back to Piltover?" Leona asked.

The corner of Caitlyn's eye twitched for a millisecond, so short that Leona did not know if she actually saw anything move across the face of the sheriff. "Nothing too serious, but it does help that the state of Piltover this year is… a lot more stable than in previous times."

Caitlyn looked to be in a hurry to get somewhere, for after an awkward pause the Sheriff hastily excused herself. "Well, it was nice to share the lane with you once more, Leona. I'll have to get going. I shall see you again later."

The tall pinstriped hat resting on Caitlyn's head nearly fell off as the purple-haired woman sped off around the corner. Leona chuckled inwardly at her friend's discomfort - she rarely saw Caitlyn so disconcerted as she did then.

Due to the lack of champions originating from Mount Targon, especially since one of them had branded herself as an independent for obvious reasons, Leona did not have a particular wing of the Institute's residential dorms to go to. She and the other Targonian, the Artisan of War, had rooms lying between the Demacian wing and the section designated for champions technically belonging with the Institute. That delegation included special cases such as Kayle and Kassadin, powerful beings in their own right. Leona always considered herself fortunate that she ended up on their good sides.

She saw the door marking her residence come into view and breathed a sigh of relief, eager to strip off the heavy armor weighing down her form and don some more ordinary clothing. In a couple of hours she would meet with some of the other supports at the Crossing, the largest and most popular restaurant at the Institute by a mile. Not surprisingly, the community of supports had happily welcomed in another of their kind, even though the battlefield tactics of the Targonian greatly differed from the expected style of healing and protecting. Not many had come prepared for Leona's unflinching charges, leaping onto the enemy marksman and incapacitating them long enough for her own marksman to follow up, although she had met her match a few times. Recklessly charging in on a marksman standing close to the shadow of Alistar the Minotaur would not end happily for Leona, and if a summoner had acquired sufficient skill with the Storm's Fury, then they could easily nullify her engage potential with a well positioned tornado and leave Leona stranded halfway between her team and the enemy. It came as no surprise, then, that Leona much preferred to lane against a more vulnerable support such as the Maven of the Strings or the Starchild, who could do little to directly peel off the warrior woman off either their carry or themselves.

Leona had started an internal debate with herself about what clothing to wear to the engagement later that night when she felt a hand on her shoulder guard. Instinctively she whirled around, nearly slamming her shield into the other person if they had not stopped it with a strong arm of their own.

"I did not know you to be this jumpy," he said with his typical brand of dry humour.

She looked far too stunned to deliver a witty comeback. Pantheon's presence at the Institute at this time of year made no sense to her at all. Unlike the Solari, the Rakkor did not mind the winter at all, and in fact held one of their most significant rituals at the start of the new year, requiring all Rakkor males to assemble on the mountain for an event which far outclassed the Rite of Kor both in brutality and necessity. The Trial of Sterak always took place at sundown of the first day of the new year.

Just as Rakkor youth had to fight to the death to gain the right to wield the relic weapons, so did the strongest of the adult warriors fight amongst themselves to establish the Rakkor Council. They never lacked for upcoming candidates to challenge the spots in the council, and instead of elections like any other society might have, the Rakkor always settled their most important disputes with trial by combat. Any number of men might step forward to challenge one of the five spots in the council, resulting in a duel to the death by the challenger and the incumbent. The winner would gain a spot in the council for the remainder of the year.

Unsurprisingly, Pantheon had held one of the positions and he boasted one of the longest ongoing spots on the council. But every year he would have to go back and fight for his rightful position against at least a dozen hopeful contenders. Leona always feared that he would never come back to the Institute, to have his body permanently stay on Mount Targon as a testament to their tradition, as a sacrifice for the way of the Rakkor to live on.

For someone who grew up in a lifestyle surrounded by the grim reality of war and death, Leona still found it difficult to let go of a life once she had made a connection to it. That mentality might have saved her and brought her to the peak to join the Solari. But it would do nothing for Pantheon, and yet here he stood, still in the halls of the Institute, not already on his way to prepare for the trial.

"Why… aren't you supposed to… but the Trial…" Leona attempted in vain to formulate a complete sentence.

"Jagen sent word to me. No one wishes to contest their life for a chance at claiming my spot on the council this year. There is no need for me to go up to Targon to defend a spot not being contested," the Rakkor told her.

Leona found the news hard to believe. The entire tribe already recognized Pantheon as their strongest warrior, hence his entrance into the League, but there always existed people wishing to try their hand, challengers to make sure he kept on his toes and didn't let his edge drop. How had the Rakkor become so complacent to let Pantheon take a free pass for the whole year?

"It does not make any sense to me, either," Pantheon continued, reading her thoughts through the puzzled expression still on her face. "I have almost come to enjoy the battles. To think that they have not found anyone willing to test their mettle against me in single combat. Sitting around idly is something I cannot do, and if it were not for the League, I may have found myself dozing off to an early grave."

"I know that this is concerning for the future of the tribe," Leona said, "but there is no way I could ever feel disappointed that you are not going up to that mountain to risk losing your life. Do not take this the wrong way, but I am glad you are staying here."

"Have you lost confidence, then, in my ability to survive?" he teased.

How could he afford to still make jokes like that? "Pantheon…"

"My apologies. Believe me, I still give Lady Death the proper respect she deserves, lest she call on me one night when I am not expecting her. And I am just as glad as you that I do not have to make the journey, although I expect it is for a different reason," Pantheon told her.

"And what might that be?"

He cleared his throat. "Since this will be the first time that I shall have had the honor to be on the grounds of the Institute for the event, I have looked into the possibility of attending the Grand Ball. I could think of no other woman to seek out when I learned that I would require one of these 'dates.' So then, if you would permit me the honor, I would ask for you to accompany me to the ball."

She began to understand the perspective that the elders saw, for as his words rolled out Leona swore she sensed the hallway lighting double in brightness.

"The honor is mine, Pantheon."

* * *

 **A/N:** I hate Leona/Diana. It makes no sense. This chapter got a lot more Leona/Panth than I expected but I don't dislike how it turned out... (except maybe her attitude for Pantheon came out a bit stronger than I had expected. This story is not based on ships but if you were in Leona's shoes I think you'd much prefer Panth over a guy like Graves)


	4. A Plot of Thorns

It felt strange to take someone else with her on duty other than Vi, but Caitlyn supposed that if they wanted to continue working effectively as a pair, they should figure how best to operate without the help of the other and make sure they could still work with others. A childish idea on the surface, perhaps, but Caitlyn liked to make sure her fundamentals remained in perfect condition. Vi had loudly protested against the plan, but when she finally relented Caitlyn believed she would be the better off of the two when they took off on their own individual duties.

The sheriff clearly didn't factor in the difficulties of working with a magical plant-turned-human, who could sometimes prove more stubborn than the enforcer on a bad day. Piltover's Finest easily went wherever they pleased, from narrow crawlspaces to the tops of skyscrapers, but Zyra could not claim to be nearly as mobile. She struggled to move anywhere higher than ground level, as she told Caitlyn how her movement restricted itself to whether her legs could sense soil beneath her feet or not. That meant that she hardly spent any time indoors, preferring to stay outside and in direct contact with sunlight if possible. She could still access most of the Institute's ground floor, but towards the center, where the summoners had expanded the building underground and dug away the soil, she could not go.

If Zyra did have to move through an area not close to soil, she would intermittently spawn tufts of grass or flowers beneath her feet as she walked, creating quite the bothersome trail to deal with and making reconnaissance work from the roofs of buildings nearly impossible. Zyra had one saving grace in regards to her movement, fortunately - she could summon vines from out of her hands to allow Caitlyn to cross gaps between areas that she could not otherwise cross.

It made for much more complicated inquisitorial work than usual, but since Zyra had been the one with her when High Councillor Kolminye encountered her, they had chosen to merely assimilate her into the program and keep her around Caitlyn so the Rise of the Thorns wouldn't do anything rash. She was grateful that she had somehow developed a friendship with the plant sorceress - a being with such primal energy would bring nothing but trouble if ticked off the wrong way.

Under the pretense of drinking their favorite Ionian tea on the open-air balcony of Hyona's, the traditional Ionian street corner shop at the Institute, the Piltoverian and the plant reclined in their straw-thatched chairs and watched as champions exited the Trial Building from across the way, named because it housed the summoning chambers, as well as all of the equipment needed to create the virtual combat that they called League matches.

They had come to the tea house just in time to catch the last few minutes of a match taking place between the champions of Demacia and the champions assembled by the Winter's Claw, the latter of which had contested several acres of land in the northwestern reaches of Valoran. No cartographer had drawn clear territorial lines in the grey area close to Demacian, the Avarosan lands, and the scattered patches of ice that the Winter's Claw clung to, but while Ashe had happily withdrawn her claim, Sejuani insisted on fighting it out.

"It is strange, don't you think?" Zyra asked as they noticed the prince of Demacia exit from the double doors alongside Garen Crownguard, Jarvan shaking his head sadly as they quickly left the area and headed back towards the Demacian wing. "The first of the fighters to come out of the north and join the League are the ones who now sit atop their throne of ice. Queen Ashe had been one of the very first to become champions, if I recall."

"That is right, but I wouldn't say that's too far-fetched," Caitlyn argued, watching Vayne exit the doors with her trademark red shades still on, her pace much quicker than that of her support, Sona, who watched the Night Hunter leave the grounds unceremoniously. Her etwahl seemed to droop along with her shoulders, mirroring the maven's mood as she silently floated on her way and soon passed out of sight. "Her role as the leader of the Avarosan was not her only claim to fame, nor was it the only foothold she had in her rise to power. The legend of the Frost Archer is well known even outside Freljordian circles, and even if one might deny Ashe's claim to the throne, there is no mistaking the enchanted bow and the crystal arrows she wields."

"But think of the other possibilities if the war had ended some other way," Zyra continued "No doubt Ashe is a strong and formidable ruler, but she has trained herself to act more like a typical ruler should, like you would see a king of Demacia or a general of Noxus. There is something lacking in her, none of the primal energy that I sense within Sejuani or even the Ice Witch, both of which could rule with even more strength. Freljord has a history much older than the highly populated regions of Runeterra, and I cannot help but think Ashe received a surprisingly large amount of help in securing her throne."

Caitlyn sensed that Zyra believed she had hit at something. "I hope you realize that you cannot simply go up to an officer with such language and not expect to be taken into interrogation. Tell me what you are insinuating."

The plant sorceress smirked, reaching for the mug of tea to sip from it before turning back to Caitlyn. "Always by the book, aren't you, officer? Very well. You must realize that, ever since the Institute had officially recognized Ashe and Tryndamere as the rulers of the Freljord, the Demacians have since eagerly hurried to enter formal diplomatic relations with the fledgling government. Noxus has not shown the same enthusiasm, but had things turned out differently they may have been more eager. Even your own Piltover, if I understand correctly, has sent an envoy there swiftly after their official coronation. Tell me, would you have leapt at the opportunity so quickly had Sejuani, for instance, taken the throne?"

Caitlyn found herself at a loss for words, even though she tried to maintain an image of impartiality when dealing with all kinds of people. It came with the responsibility of being an agent of the law, but when she had learned of Sejuani's history, how she had chosen war over peace and refused to join forces with Ashe, then Caitlyn, alongside many others, had instinctively drawn away from the Winter's Wrath. Little good could come from associating with such a volatile personality, and though she didn't want to admit it to Zyra after she put her on the spotlight, Caitlyn feared the Freljordian.

"I… in accordance with diplomatic protocol, we would have sent an envoy within a few days, of course," she tried to say.

"Of course you would. But you would not have approached them with the optimistic attitude you had when you saw that the kind, the gentle, the delicate Ashe had won out. This is the crux of my argument, Sheriff. The queen's early entrance into the League was no mere coincidence. The summoners that have brought us here hold quite an extensive interest in the frigid north, something they believe that the reign of Ashe and Tryndamere can bring them. That is why they were first amongst the northerners to be brought here, and while they may have amassed an army powerful enough to hold their ground against the Winter's Claw and the Frostguard, I do not doubt that the Institute had brought some of their influence into the snowgrounds."

"And you're telling me we got caught up in this security business on the pretense of making sure no trouble happens at the ball, because the High Councillors have some overseas interests to watch for in the Freljord?" Caitlyn asked her.

"Overglacial would be a more apt term, but that is correct," Zyra agreed. "I do not know what they might be looking for, but it is clear to me that they are depending on Ashe and Tryndamere to do more than just rule the Freljord."

The woman of thorns ceased laying out her hypothesis for a second as they turned their attention back to the doors where the team of the Winter's Claw had just exited the Trial Building. First out came the cyborg-human, the Machine Herald, who had the sentient rat marksman Twitch nipping at his heels, a glazed excitement in his eyes as he struggled to keep up with Viktor's long strides. Caitlyn gave a slightly miffed sniff of the air. Recruiting the likes of Zaunites to assist them, considering that the Winter's Claw could not field a champion for all five positions, made sense, but it still caused feelings of uneasiness knowing that Sejuani had looked to the rivals of Piltover to fill in such gaps.

The ones that Caitlyn and Zyra had wanted to look out for took the longest time in actually exiting the building, a behavior that the sheriff thought strange. But here they came, bringing up the rear of the pack. Sejuani walked alongside her boar mount, her trademark mace stowed in the saddle as she conversed with a man who stood at least four inches shorter than her. Amongst the battle-hardened fighters who gravitated towards the top lane, Caitlyn considered the Lokfarian called Olaf the most fearsome of them all. All marksmen knew to stay clear of Darius, who could easily cut through an entire team if they came too close to his axe, and to keep an eye out for Jax, who would knock down a foe with a few quick strikes of his lamppost while simultaneously invalidating their own attacks, but once Olaf had set his sights upon someone, they had no way to keep their distance from him nor repel his onslaught, leaving them only one choice: to stand their ground and fight. And close quarters were no place for a sharpshooter who had the battle strategy of keeping her enemies at arms' length.

Caitlyn didn't quite understand how the battle-hardened axewielder had stumbled into an alliance with one of the most uncompromising women in all Runeterra. She knew of the berserker's mission statement, how he joined the ranks of the League of Legends looking for a worthy battle to finally send him to the afterlife. Obviously he had not seemed to find one yet, but it appeared that he saw something in the Winter's Claw that might eventually bring him his glorious death. She didn't pay much to the debacle. Chasing death your entire life was nothing but a ridiculous barbarian custom, Caitlyn observed.

Today the arctic duo acted a lot chummier than they usually did. Although Caitlyn could not hear the subject of their conversation, their body language looked a lot more relaxed than their typical behavior. The boar rider even went so far as to place a glove hand on Olaf's shoulder, a gesture which evoked a bark of laughter from the barbarian. Caitlyn furrowed her eyebrows. Something had to be up.

"What do you see, dear Sheriff?" Zyra poked at her. "Surely I cannot be the only one out of us to deduce things from our surroundings."

"It's not exactly the most incriminating of actions." Caitlyn sat up a little straighter in her chair, making sure that she could catch every miniscule movement the two Freljordians made. "But it's something to take note of, considering how stiff these two usually act, at least in public." Olaf had gestured towards a pathway which would lead them behind the Trial Building, and they shortly made their way out of sight behind a couple of dark green hedges.

"Shall we follow them?" her thorny friend asked.

Caitlyn shook her head. "Not necessary. They haven't done anything to actually be concerned about. Besides, we'll have to meet up with Vi later tonight over dinner to pass information. I wonder if she's found anything useful. We've tried, although not very hard as of yet…"

"Ah yes, at that one establishment. I do hope the Crossing is not too packed today. Too many bright lights and sounds are not too good for my pigment," Zyra mused.

"It is the most popular restaurant at the Institute, so I can't promise anything about the crowds. We won't stay long, in any case, provided I stop Vi at four pints or so."

"It is difficult to decline the gift of intoxication, I understand," Zyra said. "You humans are all much too interesting to ignore."

* * *

Caitlyn had heard of some ridiculous practices amongst the upper class in Piltover, like dressing up the house pets in little tuxedos and dresses, but she didn't suppose anyone would ever consider fitting a gown on one of their potted plants. But there Zyra stood in front of her, clad in a stunning low-cut crimson dress to go with her fiery hair. The garment ran down to the top of her ankles, slit down the side to display a generous amount of leg, but only when the sorceress permitted it. White gloves covered up her thorny hands and nails, and sleeves with golden trim made sure to hide every other trace of her former life as a plant. If Caitlyn didn't know better, she might have labeled Zyra as one of those Noxian heiresses, as beautiful as they were dangerous, groomed from an early age to handle the highest levels of society.

"Do you like what you see, sheriff?" the sorceress teased as they stood a few paces from the long line, garnering a few looks from summoners and other employees of the Institute. Most of the attention went to Zyra and her much more appealing outfit. although Caitlyn had taken some time to dress for the occasion as well. She had on a modest purple dress with a decently low neckline and a tourmaline necklace to match her eyes, but for the most part she disliked selecting outfits solely for the spectacle factor and had put on a beige jacket to combat the night air.

"I did not realize how well you pull off human clothing," Caitlyn told Zyra. "Perhaps you are more accustomed to our ways than I thought."

Zyra gave her a smile that would not look out of place plastered on a supermodel posing for a swimsuit issue of one of Piltover's trending magazines. "You'd be surprised," she said cryptically, leaving Caitlyn to wonder what the Rise of the Thorns did in her spare time for a few moments before she heard her name being called over the ruckus of the crowd. In the dim glow of the restaurant's outside lights, Caitlyn could make out the raised hand of Jayce waving at them.

"There's our ticket in," she told the plant woman, gesturing for Zyra to follow as Caitlyn wove through the throng of people to meet up with the Piltover scientist who would allow them to bypass the long lines thanks to his connections with the manager of the restaurant. "Thank you again for the favor, Jayce."

"The pleasure is all mine, Cait. You're looking mighty fine tonight," he said as his gaze quickly turned to Caitlyn's much more exotic companion. His incredulous look went through phases of confusion, skepticism, and wonder before Zyra chose to break the silence.

"Before you choke on your own words, inventor, perhaps it is best you bring the sheriff and myself into the building," she suggested. "Then you can get a much better look at me."

Jayce gulped, nervously scratching his head before heading towards the door. "Uh, yeah, that's a good idea. Let's get inside, then. Right this way, ladies!" he gestured with an overdone motion of his hands.

Caitlyn learned that they would find their table on the second floor, and so she followed Jayce's strides towards the winding staircase at the end of the establishment. Unsurprisingly, the Crossing already had every single table on the ground floor filled, the majority of the population consisting of Institute staff, but she did catch sight of a few of her fellow champions, such as the Ionian trio of Lee Sin, Master Yi, and Wukong, the notorious criminal duo of Twisted Fate and Malcolm Graves, and most surprisingly, the Prophet of the Void nonchalantly striking a conversation with the large figure of the Darkin, Aatrox.

She had pulled away from her company a few seconds to greet Leona sitting at a table with several of the other bot lane supports, extending her well-wishes to Janna, Karma, and the gem knight, who had all excitedly shared with the sheriff about the great news which had happened to their favorite sword-and-shield sunlit sentinel. Caitlyn expressed her approval of Pantheon, knowing the stalwart warrior's emphasis on honorable behavior and protocol… at least on the battlefield. For her friend's sake, she hoped he exhibited similar conduct off it.

"The table should be right here, next to the window," Jayce told them, but as they came up to the meeting, instead of seeing her pink-haired companion seated at her chair, Caitlyn found Vi hunched over an unconscious figure, a cold hull of metal and breathing apparatus emanating purple spasms of energy. It took her a while, but Caitlyn recognized it as Kassadin, the champion with which Vi had worked the whole day.

Jayce came to his senses first and dashed over to the enforcer. "What happened?" he asked, kneeling down to take a look at Kassadin.

"Wish I could tell you," Vi grunted. Seeing Caitlyn, she quickly stood up. "Jayce, plant lady, you guys need to take care of Kassadin. Cait, the only lead I've got is that those sketchy Freljordians were here thirty seconds ago."

Zyra wanted to speak up in protest of the crude label, but Caitlyn silenced her with a raised hand. "Which way did they go?" the sheriff inquired.

Vi pointed a gauntleted hand at another staircase, leading even higher up the building. "Rooftops. No time to waste here. Let's get cracking."

* * *

 **A/N:** it's hard to continually come up with labels for Zyra that don't sound ridiculous. also I hope the little political intrigue doesn't come off as a stretch, I needed a basis for things to happen within the Freljord parties which could relate to the Institute.

if I keep up with 3k words a day I'll be sure to make NaNoWriMo's deadline... ha.

things will start to happen but I also need to introduce a lot more pairings for the ball, I hope they won't clash too much.


	5. A Storm of Shadows

She expected the sounds of nature to meet her when she walked out onto the rooftop, the symphony of birds chirping and the accompaniment of the gentle wind nipping at her back.

Janna did not expect a proper instrumentalist already sitting there in her typical spot.

The melody coming from his flute floated lazily through the morning air, a haunting tune unlike anything Janna had ever heard before. She stopped herself from approaching when she normally would have walked forward, focusing on feeling the notes resonate through the atmosphere and carry themselves along the wind to her ears, enchanted by the peaceful yet melancholic melody. Somewhere along the way her feet must have decided to move on their own, for she suddenly noticed that she had inched closer and closer to the point where the performer abruptly pulled the flute down from his mouth and regarded her warily.

"Can I help you?" the Unforgiven asked.

Only when the music stopped did Janna recognize who had been playing, and now that reality had pointed out his identity to her Janna wanted to back away, having more than just second thoughts about intruding on the personal space of a man whom the Ionians had labeled a very likely murderer. Her whole body signalled extreme caution, knowing that the man's very own countrymen had forced his exile from their homeland due to the sins he had committed. On the other hand, she had finally gotten a chance to encounter the wind samurai outside the Fields of Justice, and she'd be lying if she said his natural gift with the air didn't spark some curiosity out of her.

"I… uh…" That didn't mean Janna had any idea of what to say to the wandering Ionian. "I didn't think anyone would be up here so early."

Yasuo stowed the instrument into the small navy blue bag he had brought along. Janna noticed that he had chosen to not bring the sword along for his trip up to the rooftop, a fact which made the task of talking to him much easier. "I thought the same. It's easier to hear the sounds, easier to make out the soul of the music, playing when you're alone with nothing around to provide white noise."

Oh. He had subtly suggested that she should leave. "Well, I'd better leave you to your flute playing, then. It was quite good, don't worry about that, and I won't tell anyone if you want," she hastily offered, backing up towards the door from when she came.

"Up until the point where you came within ten paces of me, you did a pretty good job of not disturbing me," Yasuo said, raising a hand and stopping Janna momentarily. "And if you think I'm that concerned about keeping this flute a secret, would I just let you go so easily?"

The wind mage turned back to face him, her head slightly tilted down and away from the samurai. "I… I suppose not." Trying to pull herself together and do away with the embarrassment, Janna attempted to look him in the eye. Yasuo continued to look at her with a perfectly still face, betraying no reaction and giving off an intensity that caused her to draw her face away. She couldn't match him in a staring contest, that much she knew. Still very anxious about what the Ionian would do next, Janna waited expectantly for his next move, a hand pulling at the fabric of the sweater she wore.

"We might as well have a proper chat, now that we've stood here long enough trying to break the ice. Tell me, how old were you when you learned to summon the wind?" Yasuo asked. She instinctively flinched whenever anyone tried to bring up her past - to go back there meant unearthing years of buried memories that she had tried to hide for good reasons. But Yasuo had asked about her past for a different reason, and Janna wondered how much background knowledge he had on her. When she first came to apply to the League, she had given the summoners a short history of her life in Zaun but refused to comment exactly on her upbringing or how she had acquired her magical powers. He might have looked that up and understood that it had just found her - she really couldn't explain more even if she tried. Well, if he wanted answers, she figured it wouldn't hurt to fill in a few more pages if only one person was asking.

"Ten," she answered. Janna wanted to know his story as well, but she figured she didn't have the best position right now to ask questions.

"Hmm." Yasuo brooded on the number for a second, letting her answer sink in before speaking up again. "You were younger than me. I never even picked up a sword until I was twelve. Or so my brother tells me. Who knows how old we really were?"

"You two were orphans, like me," Janna realized. To think that the wind had come to both of them seemed less like a coincidence. Did it enjoy seeking out hapless souls which had little, if anything, to hold on to? The less attachments one had, she supposed, the easier it became for the wind to pluck them from the ground and allow them to take flight.

"Yes." He turned away from her, continuing to watch the sunrise. "It's a topic I don't like to discuss, and I'm sure you feel the same."

Janna nodded, starting to feel a bit excited now. They had more in common than she had first thought, and the way he spoke to her seemed more like a peddler sharing his recent experiences on the road to a passing merchant rather than a wanted man testifying to the authorities. Not that she had anything to do with the law, or the Institute, or Ionia, but Janna still saw a lot more humanity in this wanderer than in the grotesque portrait that the Ionians had painted for him.

"So we should go back to the common subject that we like better," Yasuo said. "I have a feeling your power isn't limited to the small house stunts that the summoners let you pull off on the rift. How deep does it flow?"

The power must have come to him in a similar way, Janna realized. "The wind can bend to my every thought," she explained, demonstrating by extracting out a lone gust from the air and having it every so slightly blow over the top of Yasuo's shirt, making a few small ripples. "If I wanted, I could increase this power exponentially," she hinted, increasing the temperature of the air below them and upsetting the air particles to cause a small gale to swirl around them, "but I never let it tempt me further than that." At the end of her sentence she made sure to change the atmosphere back to its original conditions. It could prove disastrous if she were to lose control of the winds.

"Very formidable," the ronin agreed. "You can change the very nature of the air. As for me, I am only limited to using my blade to summon the wind, but I've worked with my sword long enough to call it a third arm. I can even call upon it to protect me like you do" - here he swung his hand from one end to another, creating a rippling wall of wind that Janna knew could absorb any projectile, rendering them useless - "but my expertise does not go as far as yours."

The sorceress smiled meekly. "Maybe not, but I could never fight with it as beautifully as you do." And she spoke the truth, witnessing the swordsman's incredible skill with his weapon cut up an entire team in seconds. Even without the gift of the winds to aid him, Yasuo's mastery of the blade could easily match an entire squadron of soldiers. Janna could see why the Ionians had listed him as such a high priority target to capture.

"Careful with the flattery." Yasuo's expression darkened once more. "Saying things like that to a man wanted for murder… people will get the wrong idea."

Janna knew she really shouldn't try to open that Pandora's box. Still, the urge to know the truth kept pulling her in, an uneasy feeling that she felt wouldn't leave any other way. "But you didn't actually kill that man, did you? You say that your search at the Institute will bring you to the true killer?"

"Am I a murderer? Yes. Not for the elder I had sworn to shield, but for the brother that believed I had betrayed them." Janna fidgeted awkwardly at how freely he spoke about killing his brother, but Yasuo didn't seem to pay it any mind. "No point in sugarcoating the truth. That is why I am so determined to find them and bring them to justice. It's not just my life that they've destroyed. This killer also has the blood of my brother on their hands, even though it was I who swung the sword. And for both my sake and Yone's… I will get my vengeance, for the sake of the family I lost."

Even though the sun had risen high enough in the sky to envelop the entire rooftop in its brilliance, Janna only sensed the shadows that came along with it threatening to close in. Each sentence that Yasuo said, even though she sympathized with his feelings, merely served to embolden the shadows to creep closer. "And when you find this killer…?" she ventured. "You'll kill them, too?"

The swordsman sighed. "I do not walk this path because I enjoy it. It is compensation for the burden that I have been forced to bear." Yasuo turned away from her, the shadow of the roof darkening his face. "It would do you good to keep yourself as far as you can from this situation, Janna."

He continued to frighten her only with the words that he spoke. They seemed to pierce through her deeper than the cuts from his sword that she had felt on the Fields of Justice ever went. All this vindictive language worried her, and Janna just wished she could leave him there on the spot. But in spite of her desire to run away, her fear kept her rooted to the spot. The paralysis scared her even more, and her eyes widened with the recognition of what had begun to happen to her. She knew what would be coming next.

"Yasuo…" she whispered weakly, unable to even lift her arms up in an attempt to emulate self-defense.

"The only way to completely rid myself of the demons that constantly terrorize me…"

By all natural accounts, the shadows couldn't possibly have gotten this dark, but that was all Janna could see, a ghastly silhouette of the swordsman turning to face her, a hateful face contorted by spite.

"...is to appease them with the offer of blood."

The baleful laughter which followed, not the decrepit look on the samurai's face caused by the weathering of wrath, brought complete mortification to the wind mage. At this point she couldn't tell what had really happened and what had materialized from the haunting revenants of her past, but Janna just wanted everything to disappear. But the attack would not end peacefully, she knew. They never did.

"Don't look so scared!" he cackled.

 _Don't look so scared, girl. Those tears are ruining your pretty face! And you wouldn't want to make your customers angry, would you? We paid you good money so that you'd come to us all prettied up. Now get those tears out of your eyes and go back to smiling, yes, that's a good girl…_

"Stop it!" she shrieked, using the last of her willpower to break out of the bonds of terror holding her down.

The wind howled. The storm bellowed in anger.

The sky blacked out.

* * *

Janna knew the feel of this hospital bed. Sometimes she would wake up in it alone, other times with a concerned friend looking over her. This occasion led to one of the former cases. Sighing to herself, she pulled herself up and dragged her legs out from under the covers.

As expected, nothing had actually happened to her physically. Her mind had become a whole different problem, however, as the occasional lapses which broke out from inside of her showed. She supposed she had to be thankful that it didn't happen anywhere public when the trauma unleashed her distressed state. Even though the Institute held responsibility for most of its champions, they would not enjoy having to play cleanup duty after her emotional breakouts.

"You're awake." The voice startled her, causing Janna to pull the blankets protectively over her and sink back into the bed's pillows before she recognized its owner. Taking a deep breath, she let go of the sheets and slowly lowered her shaking hands.

"See, this is why the summoners said it wasn't a good idea to go off on your own," Jayce lightly chided her, wisely keeping his distance. Janna frowned at how gingerly he acted around her, knowing that she had just woken up from one of her breakouts; even so, she felt like a wild animal that required delicate attention lest they try to hurt something. The concern, though well-meaning, was complete bullshit. She knew she would never hurt her friends.

"But if I'm actually alone, nothing would even happen," Janna protested. "That's why I go up there so early. I didn't expect Yasuo to be up on the roof as well, that's all."

"Yasuo?" Jayce furrowed his eyebrows. "Janna, this happens sometimes even when you're around myself or Ezreal, but a guy as sketchy as that? There's no telling what he could do!"

"You know nothing like that could ever happen, we're protected by the Institute -" she began to say.

"I'm not talking about that!" he cut her off. "A champion like that, who the Institute has clearly pegged as a very likely murderer, can't mean anything good for the breakouts of yours. What did he say to you? Oh man, when you tell Soraka about this, things might get really bad…"

"He was playing the flute when I walked in," Janna calmly said. The inventor looked skeptical, so she pressed on. "It was a beautiful tune, probably a traditional Ionian folk song. I didn't recognize the melody, and didn't realize it was him until I came closer. And then I figured it would have been rude to barge in and listen without at least properly introducing myself, so I started talking, and then our conversation just went on so well, and then…"

Jayce just shook his head, and Janna knew her feeble excuses had begun to wear thin. She never understood why her kind intentions would land her into troubling situations, especially when she least expected them. "He must have said something to you to trigger the memories of your past. Can you - on second thought, I won't ask. If you have to do so, it's probably best for the psychiatrist and Soraka to hear about it."

"I'm really sorry." She pulled her knees up to her chest, annoyed that her friend had to suffer and worry on her account. True, Jayce had gotten used to her episodes by now, but it didn't make things any easier for him, she supposed. "Sorry for everything, all the trouble -"

"It's alright, Janna, it's over now, and the Starchild hasn't failed us yet with being able to hold it down for a while…" His voice trailed off before he quickly recovered. "Anyways, I have a match to catch in a couple of minutes, I wish I could stay longer. Well, I'm glad that if it had to happen today, it was in the morning rather than later on. I'll stop by again in the afternoon. Don't exert yourself too much! See you later!" And with the abrupt farewell, Jayce had rushed out. The wind mage turned over in the bed, biting at her lower lip. Why now? Why today?

Out of all people that she could have revealed it to, her luck - or rather, lack of it - had fallen on Yasuo. The Unforgiven. The rogue samurai of Ionia.

Janna and those close to her had tried to hide a crippling fear from her associates at the Institute. A phobia that had plagued her since her days scrambling to eke out a living on the streets of Zaun, a fear that she had done her best to obscure but never could completely blot out. Quite a few people knew already from previous circumstance: Jayce, Ezreal, the sheriff, Vi, and most of the healing staff at the Institute, which included a lot of the support champions, and the small group did their best to make sure her illness did not make itself known to anyone else.

She had become unnaturally afraid of men, although it wasn't one of those fears like one had of heights, for example, where the person would flat out refuse to go near them. A lot of the times the fear would lie dormant under her skin, seemingly inactive for weeks or months on end. Then when she had believed that she had outgrown the old habit, it would rise up again, stronger than ever after its hibernation, and had she not held access to special psychiatrist-summoners and all sorts of healing magic at the Institute, Janna knew it might have completely consumed her. The Starchild couldn't exactly pinpoint the effects that it had on her person, considering that it didn't negatively affect Janna when she woke up from her self-induced blackouts. Soraka mostly worried about relapses, fearing that the breakouts would compound upon each other, but they had found that at least a week passed between each incident, not that knowing the interval relieved Janna at all.

The worst part, at least from her perspective, happened when her friends would find out and dump all their own worry onto her, and while she appreciated the concern, it merely compounded the stress she felt knowing that her mind had cracked open once more. Janna felt that she would handle things better if Jayce and the rest simply let her resolve the issue with Soraka and the psychiatrists, but she had earned a decidedly stubborn posse of friends, and so they stood with her often, looking over her like concerned parents watched their only child.

For such a public figure to suffer such a socially-deterring illness, Janna handled her publicity surprisingly well. It did help that she had enlisted nearly all females to serve in her public relations staff back in Piltover, when League-related events and meetings of the sort happened, but it still required an enormous amount of mental composure. Caitlyn had told her multiple times that she could always withdraw from public life and no one would look at her the worse for it, but Janna always put on her brightest smile and keep telling her friends that she could keep pushing through it, so long as she had company, the breakouts would stop hounding after her. And it had worked, at least in Piltover.

But one particular social event, thanks to its specific requirements, had mocked Janna for her entire stay at the Institute, a public appearance that she dare not risk trying to attend. Her condition had forced her to turn down aspiring suitors wishing to take the beautiful Storm's Fury out for a night at the Institute even though she would have gladly accepted to go along with most of them, forcing her to conjure up lies and fake excuses as to why she could not attend the Grand Ball. And every time after they walked away, she would echo their disappointment, no matter how much she wished to go. Janna could never run the risk of her memories rushing up to tear at her again during such a significant event.

She had inherited the curse of concealing the secrets which blackened her soul underneath a life that she tried so hard to keep normal, the secret of a past life with its own secrets, with her younger blackened soul, with her younger life that she tried so hard to keep normal.

 _When will it ever end?_ Janna wondered as the door swung open once more and the summoners brought in their equipment.

* * *

 **A/N:** so funny story (ok it's not that funny) I went into this chapter thinking "let's write something fluffy and not related to politics or religion or character value for a change." It was going to feature Jayce/Janna, a pairing that doesn't technically have a lot going for it but goes really well when put into text imo.

Then it became this really depressing episode, where I don't even get to incorporate this into the rest of the plot because of the Yasuo/Janna interactions that take up like 60% of the chapter. I don't think I've actually written Yasuo before. He's fun to write. Janna on the other hand, quite a few times. I think I've always gotten a different personality on her each time.

In Trinity I didn't put much stock into it and in fact she almost served as a romantic alternative to Irelia for Jax (although I made sure that never went anywhere) and the remainder of the story was just her basically relentlessly teasing Ezreal and me making sure that she was at least kinda sexualized.

In one of the shorts in Ascendancy I write Jayce/Janna as a pure fluff romance with really subtle connotations in the entire story and trying to make it all colorful and flowery where they never say they how they feel about each other but I try to make it really witty and have Janna be a classy lady, smart enough to tease Jayce around when they talk in circles the entire chapter. tl;dr tryhard stuff and making her seem really cool

Amber Skies was a first-person experiment where I went first-person and wrote her super-humanized with worldly concerns about her Zaunite upbringing, her status as a League starlet, and the problems that she faces as a champion especially her reputation.

This is a Janna which suffers from what I call the "Riven syndrome," where you just take a character and make her mentally weak for whatever reason so you end up with a protagonist from one of those bad teen novels. Don't get me wrong, Riven's character has nothing wrong with it and it makes for great stories, I'm just tired of nearly every story about Riven being something where she tries to get over her war trauma and the responsibility falls to her love interest (either Yasuo or Irelia, and I'm pretty sure you know why I begin to dislike these). but yeah, you can do it with Janna too since her past is pretty messed up.

I never really know what to make of 'true Janna,' as in what she really should be seen as. a lot of fics flat out sexualize her (which isn't necessarily wrong, like why on earth would she select such an outfit) and her only mentions in the JoJ have to do with scandalous lingerie outfits and relationships with summoners so it doesn't feel like her lore should be taken as seriously as say, Ashe's. but if you wanted to make a Janna-centric story (look at 'Wasted' by starkgirl for instance) that was mostly serious, then my opinion on the character development is that she had to grow from that rough life in Zaun as a kid. Who she is now, a star of the League and an object of beauty/attraction, is very much true, but she probably hasn't completely recovered from her traumatic past so she suffers a bit and doesn't like to talk about it so she used the power of the wind to make her basically completely unrecognizable from the terrible past she had. though I don't think that sexualizing yourself when you probably sold your body to make ends meet is the best form of escapism

tl;dr janna probably has some form of ptzd (post traumatic zaunite disorder) and the contrast between her early life and the really celebrity-esque life she leads now makes for a weird character

I will get back to the plot soon I promise


	6. A Crack in the Surface

Caitlyn loved a good chase. It amused her that criminals and crooks believed they knew her city better than she did, and even if they did run down a few dark alleyways whose layouts Caitlyn had remembered, she could always count on Vi to fill in the blanks with her knowledge accumulated from years working on the streets.

She didn't feel that way when she followed the two Freljordians, the members of the Winter's Claw that she had just seen a couple of hours ago. The pursuit felt less like a cat-and-mouse game and more like tracking down a wandering donkey that had finally tired itself out making the last efforts to walk away from its master. The layout of the Crossing didn't leave much room for hiding, and before long, the Piltover duo had driven their quarry into a corner. That wasn't the problem here. Half the time, Caitlyn never actually worried about how she and Vi would track down suspects. What happened when she had taken them into custody and interrogation mattered far more.

Vi looked like she wanted to jump into the situation first, but Caitlyn stepped forward, preparing to address them in a much calmer way. Sejuani looked a lot less intimidating without her mount to give her a larger appearance, and even Olaf looked tamer in this light, in a space where none of them had any of their weapons and Caitlyn had the advantage by virtue of her position. She realized Vi still had her gauntlets since the fists were the only equipment amongst the four of them that could go portable. The northerners would act a lot more cautious around someone whose hands could easily punch a hole in them.

"What is the meaning of this, sheriff?" Sejuani demanded. "Are we not allowed to go as we please on the grounds of the Institute without being hounded by others?"

Caitlyn lifted up her police badge - not the one she typically used in the city, but a replica that Councillor Kolminye had issued to her when they had taken her in to work on the case for the Institute. It had a small plaque attached that read "District Officer of the Institute of War," although Caitlyn used the gesture more as a symbol than actually trying to show off her precise rank because, as she had learned throughout the years, no one ever cared about the title. "Under the order of the High Councillors, I am authorized to take you into custody on grounds of conspired treachery against the welfare of the Institute and the persons and property affiliated with it."

The Winter's Wrath looked back at Caitlyn with a fierce grimace, spitting on the ground in contempt. "What sort of order is this? The silly rules that the summoners set for us make us equals on these grounds. You have no power to force me to do anything. And even if you did, your charges are equally ridiculous. The Winter's Claw have not attempted to do anything at the Institute. We have no reason to meddle in the affairs of summoners. We are only concerned about our own homeland."

Caitlyn could feel Vi's anger beginning to rise to the surface. The pinkette raised her gauntlets. "You got a lot of nerve, you know, talking to Cait like that! We're working with the Institute, you can even check our badges, so just stop with the act and come with us already! Or do we have to make things harder for all of us?"

"Settle down, Vi," she told her partner. Caitlyn cleared her throat. "You very well may only have intentions for the Freljord, but since we are all living at the Institute for the time being, we must all agree to abide by the terms that the summoners have laid out for us. And that includes showing up to hearings when dangerous things are happening in the area. I would like to settle this manner as easily as possible, and with as little struggle as possible. Should you resist, we will not hesitate to use force."

The Lokfarian warrior, who had stayed unnaturally silent, finally spoke up. "We of the north do not have long patiences. Once we assure you of our innocence, you must swear to us that we are guaranteed to go back peacefully."

Caitlyn nodded in understanding. She could grant them that, if it meant being able to bring Sejuani anywhere without the woman trying to bash their heads in with her spiked mace. For someone who built so defensively on the rift, the arctic warrior's flail still tore at her flesh relentlessly, the frostbite icily burning to the bone and ensuring that once the boar had jumped upon you, you would not easily free yourself from being trampled underfoot.

"If you are indeed innocent as you claim to be, then the questioning should not worry you at all. And I would hate to have to chain you two like a couple of petty thieves, so if you would follow me at once, the sooner we can head to the office of the High Councillors and resolve this matter," Caitlyn told them.

Sejuani still regarded her with a look of frozen hatred, but the sheriff tried to not let her look worry her too much as she led them out of the restaurant, putting her faith in Vi bringing up the rear to make sure that the Freljordians wouldn't pull a fast one on them.

When they had reached the door leading to the summoners' disciplinary offices, bypassing a couple of enforcement officers at checkpoints, Caitlyn did not expect Councillor Kolminye herself to answer the door, but there she stood, her eyes barely visible underneath her black hair and the summoner's robes that hung over her head. "Bring them here," she ordered in a tone that seemed neither angry nor urgent. Caitlyn wondered if little incidents like this happened all the time. "If you two could take a seat, we can get this interrogation started. I know how short-tempered the men and women of the Freljord can be." Kolminye sat across from the northerners at a short black table in the center of the dim lit room, gesturing for Caitlyn to join her at an empty chair next to her. That left Vi to guard the door, and the enforcer walked over towards the corner, leaning against it with her hands crossed (after putting away her gauntlets, of course).

"Now that you have us where you want us, what could you possibly accuse us of, Councllor?" Sejuani's words cut through the air like the northern winds.

"You two are accused of assaulting a fellow League champion, Kassadin, the Void Walker, tampering with the artificial breathing apparatus he uses forty minutes ago on the second floor of the Crossing. The Void Walker was in the company of the enforcer and the Piltover inventor, Jayce, although both have alibis during the time when Kassadin lost consciousness. The Enforcer had gone to use the bathroom, while Jayce had gone down to greet Caitlyn and the Rise of the Thorns to the restaurant and bring them up to their assigned table. Upon exiting the bathroom, Vi testifies that the only other people up on the second floor were you two and that you had hurried up the stairs leading to the rooftops shortly after realizing that she had spotted you. Do you deny this?"

Caitlyn wondered why the Freljordians had come to the restaurant in the first place. She rarely saw any northerner at the Crossing, even Ashe or Tryndamere, and wouldn't have thought that the members of the Winter's Claw would stop to partake in meals at such a commercially immersed establishment.

Sejuani still seemed too defiant to answer, but Olaf spoke up."You are right, Councillor. We were on the second floor, but we had nothing to do with the Void Walker. I had wanted to bring the Winter's Wrath up to the rooftop to discuss a private manner no matter what you say had happened. But when we saw Kassadin, we noticed something strange about him."

"What sort of anomaly?"

"Instead of his usual yellow glowing eyes, he had two flaring red spheres, and he looked like one of those machines you summoners have around here that act up when they get overheated. I chose to back away from him quickly, fearing that he wished to hurt us, and took Sejuani up the stairs quickly. I did not lay a hand on the mage," the barbarian swore.

"Has Kassadin recovered from the attack?" Caitlyn asked the High Councillor. "If he can remember anything, maybe we could get his side of the story -"

"That won't be necessary, dear sheriff," Kolminye stopped her there. (Caitlyn wondered where everyone got the idea of calling her 'dear.') "The summoners here at the Institute have a more...effective way of dealing with cases that might take a typical law force days to resolve, simply because we have access to ways to truly probe into suspects' minds and take the information that we need to complete the picture."

"Using magic on people you take into custody?" Caitlyn didn't like where Kolminye seemed to go. "Do you read their minds?"

"Nothing so fanciful as that, Caitlyn," Kolminye corrected her. "It is comparable to a lie detector, I suppose, being able to tell when a person is not telling us everything when they need to. Perhaps a demonstration will more easily explain the ability to you."

The High Councillor looked at Sejuani, easily the more willful of the two. If the summoners used some tricks of the mind to get the answers they wanted, Caitlyn didn't think she should have tried going for the leader of the Winter's Claw. Sejuani probably had a high mental resolve, making it difficult to pry out sensitive information from her, but Caitlyn didn't know exactly how Kolminye's methods worked, so she simply sat back and watched the councillor do her work.

"Tell me of this private matter that you wished to discuss with the berserker, Sejuani," the councillor ordered. It seemed worse than mind reading. It bordered on flat-out mind control, forcefully pulling out the secrets from them. Still a better method than torture, Caitlyn reasoned, but not more humane in the slightest. And Sejuani seemed to struggle against the compelling tone that Kolminye had put into the command, slightly twitching in her chair as her will fought against the summoner's magic.

"It… does not concern you," she managed, fighting it as if being tied down by invisible ropes. "He… he only wanted to…"

"Cease this, Councillor," Olaf suddenly barked, putting an abrupt end to Kolminye's mind puppetry and causing Sejuani to fall back against her chair, panting heavily. "If my silence would bring her harm because she tried to honor an agreement between the two of us, then I will take her place and shoulder the burden. You have no right to torture her like that."

Kolminye considered the offer. "Very well, we can do it your way. Do not be short with me, though, berserker, or I have a whole different level of enticement to pull it out of you myself."

"I… was planning on gifting her a rare skin."

Caitlyn snuck a quick glance at Vi, who looked equally confused. Come again?

"The hide of a Krakenwyrm," the barbarian explained, easing Caitlyn's confusion. "A beast rarely seen in northern waters, yet counted very valuable throughout the whole country. I had slain it during a trip I had recently made into southern waters, and I had planned on giving it to Sejuani to… celebrate our friendship. It is nearing the time that you call Snowdown, and I felt a gift was appropriate."

The High Councillor looked intrigued, and Caitlyn didn't know whether the answer pleased her or not. As for coverups, it wasn't half bad, but hardly a decent explanation. "Is this true, Sejuani?" Kolminye pressed on.

Slowly, the Freljordian nodded. "I didn't know exactly what he wanted to give me, just that he had something to show me, and he needed for us two to be alone."

"The skin is very large and still has ocean residue all over it," Olaf explained. "It is not something you could bring to a lighted tavern as large as that."

Caitlyn didn't know if the Freljord had good liars, but these two would make good contenders. So far, the story continued to make logical sense, providing them a reasonable explanation for why they had to make such suspicious movements and go to an isolated place such as the rooftops, but the skeptical part of her still made Caitlyn wary of them. After all, if a scrutinous criminal wanted to cover their tracks, they would've devised a fairly detailed alibi story to feign their innocence. Kolminye, on the other hand, seemed satisfied by the very dubious tale. "Good, good. Very well. I will let you two go now, then, while I check things on the Void Walker's end."

The sheriff raised an eyebrow. "This is how you conduct investigations? A simple little test to see if they're telling the truth or not? Even a minor case in Piltover would warrant at least an overnight study to flesh out all the details…"

"But as you can tell, Caitlyn, we are not in Piltover. Things here can go by even faster than in your little City of Progress. Of course we are not done with our investigation, and I will have the summoners seek out the Void Walker, but seeing as I do not need the Freljordians to answer me any longer, then there is no point in keeping them here, is it?" Kolminye countered.

Caitlyn sighed. "Very well then." No point in arguing against her superiors, something she had learned very early on when she had begun her career as a law enforcer.

"Good." Kolminye smiled, a sight that didn't reassure her at all. "You are all dismissed." Caitlyn let the two Freljordians go first, giving them their space while she glanced at Vi. From their experience working together, Caitlyn had become able to read the thoughts going through Vi without having to speak to her, simply understanding from her facial expressions. The enforcer did not look pleased at all, trusting in the reliability of Kolminye's method as much as she trusted chasing Shaco into one of the bushes on the Summoner's Rift.

"How can you call a sketch like her a High Councillor?" Vi blurted out once they had left the summoners' grounds and had headed back towards their living quarters. The debacle, including going to and from the office, had taken quite a while, long passing any reasonable time to come back to the Crossing. Usually whenever either of them had stayed out late to attend to some work or match, they might stop by one of the late-night convenience stores near the residence halls and scrounge some other morsels from their stock of leftovers, but seldom did both Caitlyn and Vi end up without food. Coupled with the stress of tackling a potential threat to the Institute, only to see the High Councillor deal with it in such a casual way, the pair knew that they would need something substantial to get them through the night, putting both of them in a bad mood.

"We're just going to have to trust the summoners on this one, I suppose," Caitlyn said resignedly. "We're not in a position to question their methods, at least not for now. Most of the matter does hinge upon Kassadin's side of the story."

"But like, what else could have happened to him? He's a pretty well put-together guy for how clunky he looks. Much stronger than you'd think," Vi protested.

"If the Freljordians did nothing, then there might have been someone else on the floor that we didn't account for," Caitlyn guessed. "Red eyes, he said… doesn't that remind you of that rogue cultist case?"

"Huh? Oh yeah, that was really creepy. A bunch of people who apparently got hypnotized by some guy in robes and they got all red-eyed attacking a bank." Vi cracked a weak smile at the memory. "Not the biggest of cases, and not the funnest for sure, but definitely something I'd remember. They all went back to normal when we found that machine he was using. I didn't think technology could do something like that… figured that stuff was limited to magicians and witches and all that."

Vi talking about the cultist put a couple of ideas in Caitlyn's head, although she couldn't sort out anything substantial. She continued to toss some hypotheses around when her partner spoke up again. "But man, Cait, what are we gonna do for food? I don't think going to sleep on a couple of bags of chips won't be very good…"

A familiar voice stopped Caitlyn before she could respond. "Hey, Cait, Vi!"

The women turned to the side in the lit hallway where they caught sight of three people. The owner of the voice waved to them, while a smaller figure to his right held a couple of boxes in her arms and could not use her hands in the same manner. Caitlyn would never have mistaken the last person, who hadn't even changed out of the crimson dress that she had gone to the Crossing with.

"Jayce!" Caitlyn exclaimed. "What are you all doing out so late?"

"Just came back from the sick ward, what did you think?" the inventor shot back. "Not that Kassadin was sick or anything, but he was definitely not breathing for a long time, and they had to send us out so they could focus on actually diagnosing the problem."

She nearly jumped out of her heels - and was glad she didn't actually. "Did you find out what happened to him?"

"Unfortunately not," Zyra said. "They would not disclose the reason for his passing out to us and we won't find out anything for the rest of the night. I suppose it does take them a bit of time, since I have never seen anything like this happen to anyone around here, nor have I remembered such a symptom happen to anything in the jungle. Truly a peculiar situation."

"I'm liking these summoners less and less," Vi grumbled. "Never telling us anything, using illegitimate methods…"

"Well, technically, we don't have any rules against mind control in Piltover…" Caitlyn started to say.

"And you're being the sassy one tonight!" Vi exclaimed. "This stuff's got me really frustrated, and on top of that, we STILL don't have anything to eat!"

"Um…" a faint voice spoke up from behind the boxes she had been holding. "We saved some of the food from tonight for you. It's not warm anymore, but you have a microwave in your apartment, so we didn't think it was a problem."

Caitlyn took another look at the boxes, which Vi was already salivating over. "Oh, I didn't realize what those were! Thank you, Janna. Considering how desperate Vi and I are, we'll be glad to take anything you guys can give us."

"You're welcome," the wind mage said, smiling.

"Yeah, figured that you two could use the energy." Jayce picked up a box and gave it to Vi, who snatched it up at once. "We should be off then, it's getting pretty late." Caitlyn noticed him exchange a meaningful glance with Janna, although she couldn't understand what it could mean.

"I should be going off as well," Zyra added. "There is no such thing as a nocturnal plant… at least not from the Valoran I am familiar with."

"Yeah, see you guys later, thanks for the food," Vi spoke quickly, already opening the box she had received to examine its contents.

Caitlyn had just began to say her farewells as well when she heard the sound of wings lightly flapping behind her. The surprises never seemed to end today, did they? She turned around to face the new arrival, finding the Judicator, as she expected, coming straight towards them. If Kayle thought that she could get them to do some business for the Institute this late, Caitlyn would have told her off right there and would no doubt have Vi to back her up, but considered against it knowing that she had friends around who had little involvement in the case. She didn't want to make it seem like more of a deal than she had to.

Kayle studied all of their faces in turn before speaking. "I was thinking that I might have to withhold information from such a large group, but you all have a personal investment in this case. The following statement, therefore, is for all of you to hear. It regards the status of the Void Walker, Kassadin."

Vi looked up from the cold pasta she had already started shoveling into her mouth. "Did you find what happened to him?"

The angel nodded. "The summoners discovered a lapse in the energy sources which control the functioning of the nexii that we champions strive to defend and attack in our matches. Not many are aware of this, but Kassadin's breathing apparatus that saves him from the damages the Void has done to him relies on the system of rune crystals that make up the nexii to continually provide energy. This allows him to never worry about the system losing power when he stays at the Institute. The energy is usually running around the clock, so it can perpetually function for Kassadin, but we figured that at the time of the attack, something tampered with the rune crystals."

Caitlyn realized what Kayle began to get at. "So we have a bigger issue than just the Freljordians and Kassadin."

"Yes," Kayle agreed. "There is someone who wishes to destroy the very foundation of the Institute."

* * *

 **A/N:** I can write chapters in one day! just need plot ideas when I wake up.

the chapter might not make a lot of sense and I didn't even talk about the ball but I need this plot chapter so I can go back to my fun pairing chapters, especially finishing up that Janna backstory

also Olaf testifying to police officers was a lot harder than it seemed, I didn't capture his personality correctly at all imo


	7. A Cog in the Machine

Their target vanquished, the duelist and the beastman parted their separate ways, Fiora going back to their base while Udyr ran back into the jungle to continue defeating the camps to acquire more and more experience.

She rubbed her shoulder as her recall finished and she relaxed her muscles ever so slightly at the sight of the floor of the base, protected if only for a minute against the damage the opposing team might inflict. The Herald packed quite a punch, and although the two of them ordinarily could defeat the monster without any trouble, the wounds Fiora had suffered from the skirmish they had won a few seconds earlier brought about some slight complications. But a true Laurent would never run away from the front lines like a scared child, and as soon as she had recovered her vigor Fiora wasted no time in heading back to the top lane, ready to press her advantage which extended to giving a slight boost of power to the minions that she followed. Recently the summoners began to value champions who could come out victorious in a one-on-one situation in the top lane, a scenario that Fiora excelled at.

Her opponent had already come back to the lane and tried to keep the growing wave from making any contact with the tower, but upon the swordswoman's arrival, the minions gained a burst of energy from the essence of the Rift Herald emanating from Fiora's rapier and began pushing with greater vigor, to the point where they quickly bypassed the enemy minions and made their way to the other tower despite her opposing laner's best efforts.

A melee fighter such as Fiora would have difficulty trying to force harass on a champion protected by the range of the turret, but that didn't stop her from trying, moving aggressively towards each minion that the tower had struck in attempts to wound her opponent in the middle of them attacking the minions so they could not block or avoid her strikes. The process continued for a while as Fiora's rather large minion wave continued to crash its mass on the slowly crumbling tower, and she could feel her opponent getting worn down just as the minions wore down the turret.

"I never got the point of why they added that odd monster," the Will of the Blades complained as she dashed towards a far away minion, barely clipping it with the edge of her sword. Fiora quickly followed, earning a light touch on the Ionian's armor as if the two were fencing. She rarely said much, if anything, while she concentrated on the duel between her and her opponent. Others might taunt their enemies, while some liked to crack jokes as a part of their easy-going nature, but some took the single combat quite seriously. Fiora appreciated such behavior, as she then understood that her opponent would approach the lane with as much honor as she did. She thus considered only a few top laners worthy opponents, Irelia being one and the Noxian exile the other.

A lot of champions boasted powerful skills, but before unleashing the attacks they often had a trigger that signified that they had prepared to use it - for example, the motions of those supports who had hooks in their arsenals like Blitzcrank and Thresh. Because of the slight delays, one with sharp eyesight and equally quick reaction time like Fiora could react appropriately. While she could not exactly parry the steam golem's fist flying towards her like she could parry an epee from a rival fencer, it still stopped Blitzcrank from pulling her towards him, a skill that not many champions could match.

Irelia didn't have one of these triggers, along with that twisted crocodile, before she attempted to stun a person, making it very difficult for Fiora to predict when they would want to begin their own series of attacks against her. So when she lunged onto the Ionian once more and saw the movement of the blades begin the technique needed to stun her, the duelist attempted to change into a defensive position. But Irelia had made contact with her faster than Fiora could prepare the riposte and immobilized her just on the end of the range of the tower, submitting her to a couple of shots before Fiora could move her limbs again and dash away. Irelia quickly followed, although she still boasted a few injuries from Fiora's previous harassment. The duelist felt confident in her ability to defeat the Ionian, especially with the power of the Herald.

From the bushes in the river a hooded figure leapt out, spinning a lamppost over his head. Fiora grimaced, knowing she would have to time her block correctly. Jax did give an indicator to when his stun would fall, but sometimes he would drop the lamppost early, and sometimes wait an extra second before doing so. If Fiora called it wrong, he would have the advantage over her, and in a situation where she stared down two opponents, she could make no room for error.

She chose to wait, having squared off against Jax many times and seeing that he opted for the late activation more often than not. Making sure not to take her eyes off Irelia, who had surged towards a dying minion to her right and closed off that avenue of escape, she turned around and thrust in the direction of the tower, preparing her riposte once her dash had ended. But she felt the lamppost come crashing down on her head, and Fiora could not help but reel in pain. Another series of blows came from the grandmaster as the duelist could do nothing but weather the attacks and continue her retreat. Turning her back on an opponent felt disgusting, but it couldn't be helped - the turret shots from earlier ensured that she would not have enough energy in her to try a fight against both of them.

A blade, which she recognized as a fragment of Irelia's own spirit blade, sliced through her arm, vanishing into the air after passing her. It became clear that running away had become futile as well, which left only one option, make a stand and try to turn on one of them. At the very least she could trade her life for one of theirs and make the gank somewhat inconsequential, although it would bring the boost given by the Rift Herald to an end.

Focusing on the Ionian's weak areas, Fiora rushed towards Irelia, who realized what the Demacian wanted to do and headed for the brush to hide her weak spots. It did little to hinder Fiora's advances, as she had already committed them to memory. Peeling herself away from Jax, she slashed at the Ionian, placing a cut on her upper thigh before moving to the far side of the brush and striking at what she guessed was Irelia's 'sword arm' (an opponent who did not physically wield a blade made things slightly more complicated). While Irelia threw all of her blades at Fiora in an attempt to inflict as much damage as she could before going down, Fiora saw one last weak spot at the captain's back and slid around her, managing to just barely graze Irelia's back with a backhanded swing. By then Jax had caught up to here again and finished her off after Irelia's blades did their damage, but as she lay there in artificial death she could make out the slim form of the Ionian crashing down on the field next to her.

"Always trying to be a hero, aren't you?" Jax softly joked to his teammate before her body vaporized as it prepared for the respawning sequence.

Fiora felt the vestiges of her own body fade away as well, the pain she suffered beginning to ebb. Whenever one lost all their health in a match, their consciousness entered a null zone where they would wait until they had respawned. Summoners would use this time to make transactions in the virtual store to equip the champions with items, or communicate information with the others. She remembered a distinct few times when she had suffered death at the hands of the enemy jungler that her summoner had angrily shouted at his teammates, expressing his frustration at being defeated and more often than not blaming them for his missteps. Although Fiora hardly expressed any of her personal opinions to her summoners, she had on more than one occasion feel very tempted to tell them that if they had just dictated the way of her blade perfectly, they would not have found themselves in so pathetic of a situation.

A few seconds into the respawning process, however, Fiora noticed something wrong. She felt the mental connection between herself and her summoner disappear, and when the countdown timer should have expired and revived her back unto the shop platform, instead of seeing her body back in perfect condition, she continued to linger in the null zone between death and existence.

Had something happened to her summoner? She knew that errors on the summoners' ends could interfere with their mental links and kick them out of a match until they could rectify the issue. But that didn't seem to be the case, for as far as Fiora could tell all motion stopped on the Rift entirely. In this stasis, she could usually the map and follow her teammates' movements, but no one seemed to take any steps, or move at all. Eventually, her vision completely faded away, and for a second Fiora feared that she had actually died.

Her consciousness still floated around, though, and that simply puzzled her. Didn't a human's brain stop functioning upon death? Maybe the last blow Jax had dealt with her finally sent her to the afterlife, and contrary to what she previously believed, it seemed all too real for her to think of it as another dimension.

A red glare replaced the black nothingness that previously comprised her vision, and she ended up back on the Rift, still in the place where she had fallen. Yet something felt horribly wrong - the red continued to mar her eyesight, and it didn't go away when she looked all around her. The trees, the plants, the river, all had that scarlet tinge to them. She looked down the lane, confused at the lack of towers and seeing only a flat circular marker where they should have stood. Nor could she make out any signs of the minions, the avenues working around the top of the map devoid of its typical miniature inhabitants.

At her side, Fiora noticed that her opponents were still present. The grandmaster helped a still weak Irelia to her feet, the Ionian giving him a wide smile for his assistance as she met Fiora's intense look. Looking around her, Irelia took in her surroundings for a few seconds before coming to the same unspoken conclusion that Fiora had.

"Something's gone wrong with the summoning, hasn't it?" Irelia asked.

Fiora nodded - well, she couldn't say that everything was going alright, for they never ended up on the rift with nothing working and the elements nonexistent. She felt like she had gone backstage onto the set of a theater when they had the curtains drawn and the actors had left the props still scattered around the stage.

"Been a while since I saw the Rift look this eerie," Jax put in. "When they were still working on the little kinks to the area, things like this happened while the infrastructure needed work, but I thought they had the technological issues covered." He twirled the lamppost around a gloved finger. "The midlaners, even the rest of the teams should still be stuck here with us, and they'll probably cancel the match. Shame that I was doing so well too, but if I have to hear one more complaint from Kennen that I kept coming up top instead of going to help his lane…"

"So you've encountered this before?" Irelia asked him. "I hope nothing broke on their end."

"Nah, the system should be up within a couple of minutes," Jax said. He turned to Fiora, who had kept her silence for the short conversation. "Why do you always look so sour? You handled most of the 1v2s pretty well, especially that last fight, even if Irelia stuck around longer than she had to."

Fiora shrugged indifferently. "It was a good match, until you decided to show your face more than a few times. I do not care much for junglers. Even mine."

As she said this the lighting on the Rift suddenly returned to normal, and the three of them found themselves enveloped in pillars of light which brought them back to the summoning room in the Institute, where a team of summoners had already assembled around the champions, most of whom felt very disoriented by the bizarre turn of events. One of the referees in charge of overseeing the match raised a hand and emitted a short spark from his finger, gathering everyone's attention.

"We've experienced a brief interruption of service coming from the generators underneath the room where the Rift is virtually located. To efficiently get to the bottom of this matter, we would like to ask all of you a few questions about things you were doing, disturbances you may have experienced, and anything that may have been out of the ordinary while you fought on the Rift. Please come forward when we call your name."

A hushed whisper or two came from one of his associates, and another summoner spoke up.

"The Ice Witch is not present amongst the champions, it seems."

Now this seemed mildly interesting. Fiora knew little about the Freljord witch outside of the abilities that she sent flying at her during lane, but she knew of Lissandra's deceiving character and her failed attempt to seize the throne in the north. So much the better, she decided. The world could operate better without liars and cheaters that try to weasel themselves between the fine lines of the patchwork of the grand order. All around the rest of the room, the whispers got louder, and a bunch of eyes turned to Kennen, the opposing mid laner, who picked at his tunic nervously and looked a great deal more uncomfortable than Fiora would think a ninja of the Kinkou Order would act. "I didn't do anything to her, I swear! I was just as surprised as all of you when the rift shut down."

"If you would be so kind, Heart of the Tempest, to recall what you and Lissandra were doing moments before the system crash," the referee said.

The yordle thought for a moment. "We had just gotten into the middle of a big trade. She slowed me down with a shard of ice, and sent the claw through the ground to get to me, while I threw a shuriken while running backwards, melding into the electricity for a second. But she had managed to catch up to me, sending a ring of frost around her to root me in place, and I sent out the maelstrom, electrocuting her. Before I could get the stun off, though, she casted her own spell, encasing herself into the tomb of ice. I was trying to leave her range when it seemed that the light had fallen out of the sky and the whole rift turned red before I blacked out."

One of the summoners had written down his testimony on a sheet of paper, the quill furiously scribbling while the referee continued to address them. "I see. Thank you for the information, Kennen. Your recollection of events is congruent with the tale your summoner tells us, so we have no need to fear of foul play from your end. As I said earlier, we will still be calling the rest of you individually to make sure that your sequence of events matches up with our summoners'. Please wait here for your name to be called."

They had shortly after called Irelia and Jax to testify, and one by one the champions in the match seemed to have left the room, likely proving their innocence. When Fiora's turn had come, she bluntly shared her version of the incident, truthfully saying how the grandmaster had come to gank top while interrupting the duel between her and Irelia. They took particular note of the fact that both she and Irelia had 'died' when the system had crashed, but apart from some more hushed whispers they sent Fiora out. She overheard someone suggesting a malfunction regarding the power boost of the Herald being incorrectly implemented. So much the better, she thought, if she did not have to accompany her jungler into taking down that extraterrestrial being.

Usually Fiora would have gone to the video archive to analyze the match that she had just participated in, usually to talk with a senior summoner about the intricacies of the matchup between her and her laner as well as give an evaluation of how well the summoner who had brought her into the game had used her skills, but with the match suspended, she found herself with an odd gap in her schedule. Fiora would not have to look long to find something to keep her occupied, for she saw the prince head down the corridor, a pensive look in his eyes. He looked much different when he did not have the crowned helmet that he typically wore during battle or the giant lance that he wielded that more often than not intimidated opponents who looked to engage onto him or his teammates.

"Oh, Fiora," he waved her over, and his guard hurried to get within a reasonable distance of speaking. "I just heard of what happened in your match. Are you alright?"

"I am fine, thank you," she said stiffly. "The summoners told us it was only a mere technological malfunction. The grandmaster claims that this is not the first time and it only requires a cursory glance at the systems before they can operate again for matches."

"But I also heard that Lissandra had apparently gone missing during that whole debacle?" Jarvan questioned. "Surely that is not even a little concerning? Do they know what happened to her?"

"They asked the yordle fighting her a few questions, and all I saw was that they liked to take a lot of notes. All of us in the match came in for questioning, and I answered truthfully - we all had little to do with the spellcaster's disappearance. It is a matter that hardly concerns me, so I do not think I should be that worried," Fiora answered.

"No matter how wicked or deceiving she may be, she is still a champion of the League. If the summoners cannot guarantee our safety when we compete on the Fields of Justice, then this may not be as safe a place as I had originally thought. Perhaps I must write the king and implore him to consider withdrawing from the League…" Jarvan mused.

Fiora knew little about Jarvan because she did not care to grow close to him, but even she knew that the prince definitely overreacted to the incident. "I know you are not so squeamish a man like this to think of drastic actions like that over a simple error in the machinery. She is likely still on the grounds of the Summoner's Rift, trapped in there a little longer because of the summoners' incompetence. You still have something on your mind, my prince."

The exemplar looked down and off to the side, her left as she remembered whenever Jarvan had a personal issue that he disliked to bring up when talking with close friends. "Is it the dragoness again?" Fiora asked, trying to bring a touch of delicacy in her voice. She fought the urge to cough at how unnatural she sounded.

"I know, I know, I'm pathetic and you expect me to be made of stronger stuff, but I just haven't found the right time to ask her when we're alone, you know? It's always Garen or Xin that needs some business with me, hell even the ranger called me over one night to ask a favor! There's no way to ignore my schedule!" the prince said, exasperated.

Fiora raised an eyebrow. "Are you not the heir to the throne?"

Jarvan looked at her in total confusion. "Yes, but what does that have to do-"

"Do you not have the power to command a legion of guardsmen to protect you, even on neutrally marked grounds such as the Institute?" she asked.

He nodded. "I still don't-"

"Do you not have the ability to request an audience with one of your elite guardsmen in private, at a time appointed at your leisure?"

He understood the point of her questions and sighed. "I mean, I don't want to come off as rude to the other Demacian champions. I have my duty to my friends to uphold and my reputation as a prince to maintain. More often than not I have to continue meeting with the nobles regarding domestic issues, or planning for that stupid ball, or…"

"Do you not have subordinates charged to attend to such duties, to ensure that your individual workload does not become over-inflated?" she queried.

"Okay, Fiora, I get it!" He held up his hands in concession. "I can't believe I didn't see how useful you've been, more than just the last resort. I should have more faith in the judgment of one entrusted to me in all situations. But I do have a lot of things to do for the rest of today, so…"

"Prince Jarvan Lightshield IV, one moment?"

Another one of those irritating summoners, Fiora realized. The prince turned to receive the hooded figure. She didn't think she had seen him at the summoning room, but with the nondescript robes that they wore, all the summoners of similar height looked the same. "If I may have a private audience with you, I have some urgent matters to discuss," the summoner requested.

Jarvan looked at Fiora for a moment before replying. "The privacy won't be necessary, summoner. Laurent stays with me when I discuss anything serious enough for the Institute to specifically contact me. She is bound to that position by her duty as a protectorate of the crown."

The summoner seemed offended that the prince chose to defy him on Institute soil, but he held his tongue. "Very well. I shall be brief. You have already been made aware of the disappearance of the Ice Witch, Lissandra. We are also aware that the champions of Demacia have traditionally been important participants amongst the attendants of the Grand Ball. Due to the events of the past few days, along with the recent events which have occurred politically regarding the worldwide recognition of the Freljord state, we at the Institute have reason to believe that the enemies of Queen Ashe and King Tryndamere are hatching some kind of diabolical plot to harm the newly crowned rulers. This plan will likely take place at the ball, and we would like the help of the nation of Demacia to prevent such a catastrophe from occurring."

Jarvan nodded grimly. "Demacia has always sought favorable relations with the Avarosan people. We have already made preparations within our own people here at the Institute to ensure a large presence at the ball, so I will contact my staff and advisors to let them know of these new developments."

"I am glad we have come to an understanding. Expect repeat visits with orders from the High Council regarding this crisis, and realize that you should not trust anyone," the summoner advised him, making an minute turn of his head in Fiora's direction. The nearly imperceptible gesture was not lost on Fiora.

"If you think the members of my royal guard have somehow been caught up in this, then I suggest you reconsider your words, summoner," Jarvan said, his eyes narrowing.

"My words come from the unrivaled minds of the High Council itself, exemplar. We shall meet with you later," the summoner spoke ominously before disappearing behind a column.

Jarvan watched the robed man go, the footsteps faintly echoing on the tiles. "Those arrogant fools…" he grumbled after a while. "Daring to disrespect the good name of the royal guard like that…"

"My prince, if you will excuse me," Fiora interrupted, realizing that something crucial had to happen if they could come to the Institute's aid in protecting the Freljordian king and queen.

"What is it?"

"Given that your attendance at the ball is now mandatory, it would be wise to seek out the dragoness at once and convey your desire for her to join you in attendance," Fiora suggested.

Jarvan looked like he had succumbed to a surprise appearance by Fiddlesticks in the middle of the jungle. "Ugh… why do you always have to be unbearably correct all the time! Fine, I'll do it today, but if I need a date, then you definitely aren't getting to the ball without one yourself!"

"I believe that would negatively affect my ability to protect you should the need arise, Your Highness," Fiora argued.

"What? I'm sure you've probably swung that sword around in a pair of heels before," Jarvan said.

"The ancient family tradition prohibits entering the ritual of combat without equipping fitting fencing equipment beforehand," she informed him.

The prince could do nothing but lean against a pillar and groan in agony.

* * *

 **A/N:** this chapter is longer than usual because fight scenes always clog my word count. nothing new

I'm sorry if Jarvan comes out to be a total sap I actually love the character and play him top/jungle a bunch I swear I don't hate him.

I'm kinda concerned that Fiora got a bit too robotic at the end, I'm still trying to write her as totally distant to Jarvan, at least in the way she speaks to him (and everyone else), even though from exposure to him she knows a lot more about him than she realizes. but slowly she'll start to understand him and his struggles with women :^)

also RAGEBLADE JAX is permaban in highelo, oh man that's hilarious and Irelia herself does just as well, if the preseason wasn't so messed up I'd probably be spamming ranked to get freelo, but then I can't write. tough. even so you have no idea how happy I am that it's jax/irelia/fiora top meta


	8. A Hunt of Illusions

"We apologize for calling you at such an abnormally early hour, but we appreciate you taking the time to help us with this procedure nevertheless," the Eye of Twilight said. His junior, the Fist of Shadow, kept to herself as she brought in a tray containing several rows of equipment.

"It is no worry. I am happy to lend my assistance to the Kinkou," Nidalee told him, forcing a smile as she took out the straw-thatched bag of shrubs and herbs she always kept in her room in case of emergencies. The plant life of the Kumungu Jungle possessed many magical properties, and although most people saw it as dangerous, life-threatening species such as the plant that Zyra came from, the true hunters such as herself and Rengar understood that the forest could restore life as easily as it could destroy.

Her inner timetable naturally acclimated with the state of nature since she had lived most of her life in the jungle according to the rising and setting of the sun, so Nidalee had already become used to rising early in the morning, hours before matches usually began running. It seemed that the Kinkou discipline required the ninjas to rise up even earlier than the huntress, however, as she did not expect a call from the medical wing at six in the morning. Since she had ended up on the list of certified champions to consult should extreme emergencies arise, the Institute had bound her to answering to summons if the medical staff on site could not amend injuries. Nidalee did notice the Kinkou Triumvirate spending an awful long amount of their free time volunteering their efforts in the medical wing, and it always struck her as odd. She would never understand the odd way of the Ionian ninjas.

"It has come to my understanding that there exists a waking draught medicine that can only be administered properly with the root of a specific plant in the Kumungu Jungle," Shen continued. "Would you happen to have one such root?"

"Mm… you are speaking of the Iyashi flower," Nidalee said, knowing of its curing properties. Searching around in her pack for the specimen that she kept with her, she pulled it out after a few seconds and showed it to Shen. "A very rare flower indeed, one that you can only find atop the cliffs overlooking the great waterfall in the south. Why do you seek it out?"

"The Institute's summoners have been at work the entire night trying to tend to the mysterious injury that the Void Walker had suffered yesterday," Shen answered, bringing Nidalee over down the hallway and into a closed off room, where he swiped an identification card to gain entrance before walking in. Nidalee followed. "All that was known at the time was that Kassadin's eyes glowed red for a second, and likely his entire body, before the breathing apparatus protecting his fragile diaphragm ceased to work for a second. The mage collapsed and fell unconscious, and even when the apparatus began to function once more he remained incapacitated."

Drawing back a curtain, he revealed the idle form of Kassadin lying on the bed, a series of wires connected to his back and around his mouth where the breathing apparatus covered him. "The summoners who checked him detected nothing fatal in his biological systems, however - his heart still beats, and he appears to be breathing normally, if a bit slower than usual," the ninja continued, putting on a pair of surgical gloves. "The Kinkou had been dispensed to study his body for any traces of imbalance, and finding none, we have judged this not to be some act of foul play, but some force of arcane magic at work. We have been calling in the champions with knowledge of mystical and occult healing, therefore, to add to the working of pool of knowledge to see if we can come to a conclusion."

"I will take a look at him," the huntress offered, moving forward. Nidalee herself didn't know what she thought she would find by getting up close to Kassadin, though. She had never associated with the Void Walker outside League matches and generally avoided those who appeared to have sacrifice some of their natural characteristics for human augmentation, although her inspection along with Shen's clarification changed her perspective. Kassadin didn't use this technology the same way Viktor did, blindly throwing away the gift of human form that the gods had given him for a bunch of cold metal rods, a pitiful imitation of human limbs. Rather, the Void Walker's face, at least what had remained of it, looked like someone who had aspired to transcend beyond the limits of humanity and paid much too dearly for reaching out too far.

The shapeshifter bent her head close to the prone form, turning her ear toward Kassadin's body and closed her eyes patiently, holding a hand up to request silence from the already quiet ninjas.

"What are you doing?" she heard Akali ask from behind Shen.

"Listening to the primal mark of the Mother beat. All living things are born with one. It beats like our hearts do, but with a different beating, a different sound, which only the caretakers of the wild can hear. This gift I was given in Kumungu, by the wise cougars that raised me," Nidalee explained, going back to concentrating on sensing the mark. If Kassadin had fallen so far out of the natural cycle, and had lost too much of the trace of his human substance, then the medicine of the Iyashi plant would have no use here. That did not mean they would have no choice but leave him to his doom, rather, the recovery would come along on a much longer pace. Whether that meant days or weeks, the huntress did not exactly know, but the cleanest and quickest way to bring about his recovery involved consumption of a draught with the root of Iyashi. Nidalee sensed something, underneath all those mechanical devices, the barely recognizable sign of a mage who had not given up on the pursuit of the knowledge of the ancients.

She stood back up, satisfied, as the Kinkou continued to watch her wordlessly. Eventually, the Eye of Twilight chose to break the silence. "Will you be able to help him?"

Nidalee nodded. "It was a close ordeal, but we can yet save him. Without the plants of Kumungu, you would have to wait much longer for him to naturally get better from whatever wound ailed him; however, here we can bring him back to awakening in a matter of minutes." She set the bag on the floor, holding up the root again for the Kinkou. "I will need something to cut it."

Akali came forth, handing over a surgical knife and gave Nidalee access to the tray she had brought in. The huntress stood over the white surface, systematically chopping the root into small fragments before crushing it into a whitish-brown paste. In the jungle, she would normally then dig a small hole to fill with water and mix the paste in there, but she fortunately did not have to resort to such a crude method. She found an empty glass with the medical instruments, pouring the paste into it and filling it with water from the nearby sink. The draught preferred water coming directly from the sky, and she usually provided it with a source from a lake or a stream, but the artificially filtered water from the Institute would still do, and she presented the glass to the female ninja.

"I do not know where you would need to pour it," Nidalee said, "but he shall have to swallow all of it, or at least most. The taste may involuntarily cause him to gag. Be sure that you hold him down."

Nodding, Akali carefully moved towards one of the hinges on Kassadin's mask, flipping it open, although Nidalee could not see what remained of the mage's face, if any. Looking around for a second before finding what must have been the mouth, the Kinkou thrust a couple of fingers into the opening, probably plying the mouth open, before pouring the draught down Kassadin's throat. As expected, his body unconsciously shuddered at the foreign taste of the medicine, but Akali dutifully managed to keep the spasms under control. Eventually, the container emptied, and Akali returned it to the tray, carefully watching the Void Walker for any signs of movement.

"It will take him a few seconds, assuming the draught has worked correctly." Nidalee had seen it fail, one tragic time when she believed she could still save those who Mother Nature already laid her claim on. "He will attempt to sit up if it does."

As if on cue, five seconds later they registered movement from the mage, whose eye sockets again began to glow their regular yellow. Kassadin sat up, appearing very confused by his surroundings. Nidalee sighed in relief - at least this time, she had not again gone wrong.

Shen wasted no time in getting to business. "It is good to see you well, Void Walker. Thanks to the efforts of the Bestial Huntress, we have successfully drawn you from the depths of unconsciousness. The Institute has charged me with overseeing the investigation into your attack, provided that you remember. Are you still aware of recent events?"

Kassadin nodded, turning to look at Nidalee, who maintained a blank face and nodded back.

"Then I shall ask you some questions. Nidalee, your presence is no longer required here. Thank you again for your assistance," Shen told her, never once changing tone in his voice as Akali ushered her to the door.

Sometimes Nidalee wondered whether Shen was not also some strange life form masquerading as a human.

* * *

Summoners savored the excitement of hunting as much as she did, she had recently found. Normally, League matches would occupy a good portion of her day since many called on her to utilize her expert hunting skills in the role of jungler, and rightly so. The many bushes on the rift which provided cover tilted the odds in the favor of those who did not have to solely rely on their sight to navigate each treacherous corner. In her cougar form, Nidalee boasted sharper senses than nearly all other champions, and even in her human form, carefully placed traps could provide her with all the information she needed.

That didn't mean that worthy adversaries never showed up to challenge her. Of course she loved to tangle with Rengar, probably the only other champion out of the lot who had a more thorough knowledge of the jungle than herself; she also relished frustrating the leonid's rival, the Voidreaver, who might have stronger fighting skills than Rengar but lacked both Rengar's and Nidalee's cunning. The accelerated process of evolution helped him in some ways, but more often than not the bug found his wings pierced by the sharp end of her spear and crash and burn in a flash of tooth and claw.

Of other formidable opponents, she could not forget Elise, the arachnid queen whose extremely potent bite would surely finish you off in the blink of an eye if she snared you in her webs, and with the ability to come from the canopy ceilings and swoop down upon her prey, Nidalee always had to watch her back when leading the hunt against her. There also came the Void monster, Rek'Sai, who could probably go toe to toe with her in terms of how agile they moved across the forest floor. Nidalee couldn't help but feel disgusted that one who spent its life in the desert sands could still maneuver in the jungle with remarkable agility. How could she fight toe to toe with something that attacked from underneath the ground? Between the creature's irritating swiftness and the ear-piercing cries it emitted when it tunneled to any of the burrows in the rift, Nidalee held quite the contemptful opinion of it. But she had even come to respect the fully human: she considered the monk probably the best of the lot, due to his affinity with nature and the ability to sense movement even without actually seeing his targets. Interestingly enough, the Demacian prince and the fat man who always seemed to carry a barrel with him did not fall far behind.

Understandably, Nidalee felt like the wind had been knocked out of her sails when she learned that the summoners had cancelled matches for the day, citing something about 'technical difficulties.' Tch. It didn't matter if they could not play with all the fancy lighting and minions and strong virtual monsters. If she could have it her way, she would gladly go to the forests and fight her foes with real weapons in the meantime. At the very least, she needed to find something to do, for she had many hours before she would meet with Rengar and she didn't want to risk laying down out of boredom and instinctively napping in one of the gardens or outdoor patios.

She traversed the floors of the Institute in human form, having come from the medical ward, painstakingly forcing her way between clumps of summoners. If she had her enchanted spear, it would make clearing a path that much easier, but unfortunately, she would have to settle for the subtle pushing and shoving that humans resorted to when they found themselves in a tumultuous crowd. Her wandering thoughts clung onto something to do: the time approached breakfast hour, and since she had woken up earlier than usual, her body began to crave nourishment. Perhaps she could find a suitable dish at the little Ionian establishment. Out of the champions that came from the human countries, she tolerated the Ionians most of all, next to the Freljordians. She often found the Spirit Walker amongst the company of either people, a man who understood the primal call of the wild, and even when she could not talk to Udyr, Nidalee still loved to listen to the chatter coming from the monkey king, or the mantras from the Enlightened One, or the honest expressions from the girl who wielded swords with her mind, or the spiritual teachings of Lee Sin.

The small building called Hyona's looked rather different from the last time Nidalee had come there, which had been a while. The awning of the storefront bore strange green and red coloring, and over the door there hung a small plant that she knew came from the northern regions - mistletoe. A large pine tree stood outside the entrance, decorated with a bunch of frivolous ornaments, and a golden star adorned the top of the pine. Quite a curious arrangement, the huntress thought to herself when she felt a hand touch her shoulder.

"Nidalee?" She knew the scent before she recognized the voice. The shapeshifter turned around to see the summoner that had accosted her, hood uncovered to show the dark hair crowning a young face with chestnut eyes and a smile whose enthusiasm preceded its owner's. "It's rare to see you outside the Trial Building! You're quite the elusive kitty, you know?"

Nidalee could not help but smile at the summoner's cheerful disposition. "It is good to see you, Summoner Alexandra."

Alexandra put her hands on her hips in mock irritation, the long robes covering her hands. "You can drop that 'Summoner' label. It's so formal, I feel ten years older whenever someone says that to me. But I assume you're here for breakfast too? Would you like to join me? Since matches are out for the day, we've all got quite a bit of spare time."

She thought back to the decorations, thinking that her summoner would probably know a thing or two about the events. "That would be a good idea, yes. I'd like to ask you about some things."

"Well then, let's get going!" Alexandra said excitedly, pulling the huntress into the cafe.

Most of the food that Nidalee saw people in highly populated areas amused her. Bread was a harvester's dish, a stale result of agriculture that didn't satisfy her the way that the meat of a recent kill could, or even the fruit that she found climbing the trees in the jungle. She had struggled for the food rather than take it from the plants that farmers purposely grew and the latter method didn't seem right at all. So while her summoner had purchased one of those sandwiches for herself, the huntress chose to simply get a large bowl of fruit and eat from it as they sat down at a table.

"So what was it that you wanted to know?" Alexandra asked her.

Nidalee gestured towards one of the props located inside, a hook-shaped object with red and white stripes. "What are these decorations that I see everywhere? I do not recall the Institute acting this way the last few years."

The summoner giggled, placing a hand over her mouth. "Oh, Nid, it's amusing that you spend so much time perfecting your strategies in battle that you don't notice what's happening all around you. It's to prepare for Snowdown, of course, that and the Grand Ball! Surely you know of that."

The huntress looked slightly ticked off. "I know of this winter celebration, and I have heard of this ball, but they have never set up these decorations. That is why I thought Snowdown was something minor, because the Institute did not set up things any different than they usually do. Why is this year an exception?"

Alexandra looked up to the side in thought. "Oh, that is pretty strange. I know that they made a big deal of wanting to make the halls look all pretty for the ball, because they're trying to make a good impression for Queen Ashe and King Tryndamere. They have just came back from winning that civil war up in the Freljord, so this time they can actually say they're properly the rulers of that country."

"It sounds like they are making too much out of this ball thing. Fancy lights and pretty decorations can only go so far," Nidalee said.

Nidalee didn't seem to understand the significance of the Grand Ball, as Alexandra made a half-disgusted face. "What? You mean you don't get it? The Grand Ball's only just the most important celebration of the year, well, if you're a summoner who's looking to move up in the ranks. But even for higher-up people all over Valoran, and especially you champions, you get to befriend famous and important people. I heard it was a ton of fun and I haven't had a single friend that went to it that didn't completely love the experience! Oh, Nid, I can't believe you haven't gone!"

She seemed a bit embarrassed now from Alexandra's enthusiasm, but Nidalee did never think much of the social functions the Institute set up. It seemed no different than the political fiascos that she saw government officials often find themselves tangled in. "Well, I know that you can't simply walk in for this ball. You need one of those 'dates' to get in," Nidalee pointed out.

"That shouldn't be a problem for someone like you, though!" Alexandra exclaimed. "Not only are you a champion, but have you taken a look at yourself lately? There'd be hordes of guys willing to take an exotic beauty like you out to the ball. If you really are in need of one, I can hook you up with one of the guys I know…" She said the last sentence with a mischievous look on her face, and Nidalee decided she'd rather not get caught up in one of Alexandra's plots, especially considering it involved male summoners. Most of the ones who summoned her acted normal enough, but she had found her fair share of perverse lowlifes in the lower ranks, and she wouldn't let one of those guys anywhere near her. Still, the prospect of the ball intrigued her with all the effort that the Institute did in hyping it up. If she did need a date to attend, she knew exactly who to look for…

"In any case, thank you for the answers, Alexandra," Nidalee said, getting up after finishing the last few slices of watermelon that she had taken - at the very least, the Institute knew how to acquire fresh fruit. She had gotten all the information that she needed, and she wanted to detached herself from the conversation before long. If she let Alexandra babble on for extended periods of time, things got a bit strange, to say the least. "I should be going off now."

* * *

The largest prey showed up when the sun went down, and that was the case both at home in the jungle and ordinary day-to-day activity at the Institute. Nidalee had awaited the late hours long enough, and she had come prepared as she headed towards the tavern ran by a Freljordian trader. For someone who had gone so long without coming in contact with such tempting low-hanging fruit, Nidalee had taken quite a liking to her first taste of alcohol, and it became easier to indulge in the pleasure when Rengar offered to purchase most of the drinks despite their high cost. He would never tell her where he had acquired such high sums of money, although she suspected a large percentage of it came from under the counter deals and gambling on match results.

"About time you showed up," her benefactor growled when she came into view, his large silhouette put up against the torchlight of the tavern entrance. Rengar didn't look any less scary than he did on the rift and only slightly neater, even considering how disheveled he ended up after a risky tussle in the enemy jungle when he wished to duke it out with his opponent.

"So I took a detour on the way here. You can't blame me for stopping to listen to such a beautiful tune," she explained, looping an arm around him teasingly. She had caught sight of that blue-haired maven playing on the open patio at Hyona's just before sunset, providing a phenomenal soundtrack of ambient music, and judging by the sizable crowd that had gathered outside to listen to Sona, Nidalee figured it wouldn't hurt to tarry a little.

"You realize that I'm paying for all drinks past your first, you know," Rengar reminded her, brushing her off and barely waiting for her to follow him before he stalked into the bar.

"And I am ever so grateful, Rengar," she purred as they made their way to the counter, stopping a while to wave at Gragas already seated at a table with the Grandmaster at Arms. Judging by the number of glasses already emptied on the table, they had somehow come in before sunset and had already gone straight to happy hour.

The bartender had quickly brought them their first drinks, as the two of them frequented the place often enough for him to know what beverages they wanted. Rengar, unsurprisingly, didn't bother easing into the alcohol and always went straight for vodka or variations of it, but Nidalee understood that in such a case, the way to gain maximum pleasure meant enjoying the journey and easing into the state of bliss intoxication could bring. She would opt for a highly diluted mixture of gin and fruit, although she couldn't ask for anything too left field because the owner did get most of his ingredients from the north, in the cold regions where nothing tropical like pineapples grew.

"Weekdays are quite dull when there are no matches to be won," Rengar complained, deeply drinking from his glass and not looking at all for the worse. "Did it ever occur to them what would happen to their fighters when they are kept from fighting? My claws itch with the missed chance to strike fear into my prey's hearts and tear them to pieces!"

As much as she wanted to tease him for his aggression, Nidalee was much the same, constantly antsy for hunting to do or at least some kind of action. But she had spent her day quite lazily, outside of assisting the Kinkou early in the morning, and even then she felt little happiness from that good deed. Shen's knack of repressing his emotions along with the alien nature of their patient made it so that Nidalee felt like she fixed one of the machines Heimerdinger constantly tinkered with rather than an actual champion.

"There are a lot of people around here like you, you know," Nidalee noticed. "You could walk into any of the training rooms and probably find someone just as restless as you. The duelist would never turn you down, nor the red-haired Noxian, or the Master of Shadows."

"You should not confuse me for one of the Noxians or that fool Zed," Rengar corrected. "I do value strength, but it is the ability of complete domination that has set me above all other predators. When I am out on the rift, I use the features of the jungle to my advantage. We have fought against each other on rare occasions in that open space they call a lane. Did you not notice how unnatural it felt? Constantly in view of the opponent, with only a few bushes off to the side to serve as meager camouflage."

Nidalee knew the feeling. In the past, people would experiment whenever they took champions up to the top lane, and both she and Rengar had made trips up there. Her movements felt quite robotic, always waiting for minions to get low before dealing the killing blow, getting in a quick blow or two against her enemy only to retreat instead of pursuing them till the end, and having to focus on other factors besides hunting and strategy. It didn't help that many did not understand all of her abilities - most felt content to simply sit back and throw spears, and while she did have a great throwing arm, Nidalee couldn't help but feel that only those who could shapeshift as well could understand the augmented power that flowed through her when she unlocked the aspect of the cougar.

"Then you must have taken a look around the Institute, if you did not spend a lot of your time fighting the other champions," Nidalee said, leaning back against her chair. "Did you not notice how everything looks… more colorful?"

Rengar had already finished his drink and asked for more. "What do you mean?"

And she had gone on to tell him about the short conversation she had with that summoner, how the people of the Institute had put so much importance into this grand ball of theirs. Nidalee knew that Rengar probably cared about those meaningless celebrations even less than her, but she had to bring the subject to him quickly. After all, they only had a week and a half until the ball, and if she wanted to go and see it for herself, she'd have to bring him along, wouldn't she? "Doesn't it sound nice?"

As expected, he expressed little interest in the subject. "Dressing up to act as a spectacle for the summoners. I cannot think of anything more humiliating."

"It's not like you have anything better to do during the winter," Nidalee argued, "even if you were to go back to Kumungu where all those prey strong enough to brave the winter have either migrated to warmer places or perished to one of us. It might be interesting, at least this once, to take a look at the things that humans value and count as supremacy."

Maybe a few more drinks would do the trick. Did this count as harassment? Nidalee didn't think so, considering Rengar had the money and could stop any time he wanted to. The leonid reached for his fifth glass, however, and he looked strong enough to keep going. "So are you going, Nidalee, and joining this festival of clowns?"

She swallowed another mouthful of alcohol. "I would love to try it out, Rengar, but you see, it is not an event where you can just go alone. They require that each male pair up with a female."

"So there lies the problem," Rengar said, wholly ignorant of what Nidalee tried to get at. "We both lack partners to attend this event, unless you could procure a female for me to escort. I will admit, I understand the appeal now… a strong man who wished to prove himself would do so by getting an attractive female on his arm…"

Nidalee brought a hand to her forehead in frustration. He could blabber on and on better than that orange yordle sometimes. "Rengar, I am saying that we should go together. We will attend the ball as a couple."

He looked like had sobered up a little after what she said, but no less of a buffoon. "You cannot be serious, Nidalee. Are you so desperate for a partner that you came to me? Surely with physical appeal like yours, you would be an object of much contention among other champions who seek to go to this ball more than myself."

She knew he acted rough, but Nidalee didn't believe he could act so insensitively, even after so many drinks. It took her all her self-control to not slap him in the face right there. "Did it ever occur to you, Rengar, that maybe I didn't seek out a partner on purpose? Even if I had gotten an interest in the ball months ago, I would not think to let anyone else take me for my first time. We've made such a strong bond over the years, one out of respect for the other's hunting skills, that I could not think of any other male to have the honor. It's okay if you don't want to go, I know you have so many other things to attend to during this time, but at the very least, don't patronize me, Rengar. You should know me better than that."

Her words seemed to make her desired effect, as now he looked like she had really slapped him. "Ah, Nidalee, why didn't you just say so? You know I would gladly assist you if you had just spoke plainly like that in the first place. It would be a great pleasure to go to the ball with you, and impress them with a pair of hunters that Valoran has never seen before!"

Nidalee shook her head. "Okay, enough from you for tonight, you're too drunk for this. I'm taking you out of here," she ordered him, and despite the Pridestalker's slurred protests, she managed to drag him quite a distance and down the halls towards the dormitories where they stayed.

The long walk seemed to have sobered Rengar up. He no longer leaned on her when he took a step, and his senses had come back to their usual sharp state, for when Nidalee started to ask him if he sensed something odd, he had already touched her arm and stopped his walking.

"I am sure you smell that," he said quietly, turning in the direction of the Trial Chamber that they were walking by. "The scent of...magic?"

"Yes," Nidalee agreed, "but nothing like the traces that we can detect in Kumungu. It is a far stranger magic, like the ones that we sense every time we walk past a nexus during a game."

"It makes me uneasy." Rengar walked towards the entrance to the Trial Chamber, forcing her to follow - she still could not leave him alone. "Are the summoners up to something?"

Nidalee had great eyesight, and Rengar had even better, but as the saying goes, when night truly falls, all hunters are left blind. For a whole minute they could see nothing in the uninhabited halls of the chamber. But still she felt that magical presence, like a lone wisp that haunted a graveyard, or the last sparks of a dying candle, an ominous existence that they could not ignore.

Rengar walked a little further, and he seemed to have spotted something, for he grabbed her arm and pointed in a direction. Leaning forward, she tried to make out what the leonid had spotted. A faint blue light rose up from the ground, exposing the trademark hoods of a few summoners. Her eyes tried to count the exact number: three, four, five, maybe even six? She could not make out anything specific, but they had arranged themselves in a circular position around the blue light, which had spread out. Something broke the silence that had once shrouded them. Voices chanting in some unintelligible language, the summoners speaking in unison. Rengar growled softly beside her as they watched the blue light continue to expand, splitting into six teal flames that headed towards the summoners before stopping in front of them. The flames then spread out into a circle, connecting all of them and then racing inward. A large fire broke out in the middle, shooting high up above the summoners before it quickly went out, leaving behind only the blue circle.

The proceedings had happened so strangely, and the summoners did not even move during the whole ritual, that Nidalee at first though she had hallucinated. But she knew her eyes had not deceived her, and she struggled to pull out a meaning from the mystical sequence that they had just witnessed. Was it some kind of arcane summoning that they performed in secret? Or just magical maintenance? Nidalee bet on the side of the former, although she hoped nothing serious would come of it.

"It is probably nothing," Rengar insisted after a short while, disinterestedly trudging away back towards the passageway towards the dormitories and leaving her to continue watching the summoners and their occult circle.

The mystical light dissipated, shrouding the robed druids back under the cover of darkness.

Nidalee didn't think so.

* * *

 **A/N:** a side POV with almost 6k words? I guess I got a bit carried away but I got some important plot points while also writing some fun stuff with Nid and Rengar, two champs I wish I could play in the jungle but when it comes down to it I have the mechanical skill of a potato.


	9. A Wind of Promise

Janna used to wish she had gone to school like a regular child. Whenever she wandered close to a schoolyard, the students always looked so happy, so free. After a few days of watching the kids leave school, however, she noticed that not all of them bore smiling faces, and the real test came after they left the school grounds.

She remembered the afternoons in Zaun underneath the orange sky when classes ended for the day, a sweltering furnace except for a couple of months in winter where the harsh sun acted as a furnace to hold the trials children faced every day. While some fortunate children, those who had parents in the laboratory or in City Hall, just had to wait for their caretakers - not even their actual family, who were much too busy with work - to pick them up from school, the majority had to navigate the labyrinth of routes in the underground subway system and take multiple trains before they could come home. A subterranean network sprawling miles and miles around the capital, Zaun under the earth seemed even larger than it did above… and yet the government turned a blind eye to it, letting criminals, vandals, and thieves run rampant in the dark corners of the subway.

Normal children spent five or six hours in school, a perfectly safe environment where they only feared the scolding of their schoolteachers if they slacked off. But when they stepped out into the real world, no amount of reading textbooks or stocking up on school supplies could prepare them for the tests that the gaping maw of the underground spat out at them. Janna, who had to constantly move both above ground and underground so she never missed out on opportunities, was a different case. The young blonde girl had to learn quickly in order to make a living for herself in the Zaunite alleyways and subway stairways, so lessons came easily to her. The times on the rusty monitors that displayed when the next train would come served as her textbooks, and each token that made its way into her hands acted as her pencil and paper. Janna could proudly say she had never failed a test. But each assessment came with the price of ending up down by the sewers, cold and covered in grimes, should she fail.

No one would survive alone down there without a bit of luck, she had to admit. When one of the districts had caught on to her loitering, holed up in a torn blanket on the steps of one of the back entrances to a museum, the police chased her away instead of trying to take her in, forcing her to flee to the depths of the underground and find another place. But she had no money to purchase subway tokens, and had to make do with hoping that she would scavenge some loose coins that dropped from people's pockets as they walked by, steal the tokens herself, or learn to manipulate the machines to get extra tokens for every purchase. Janna knew those unreliable methods would not last forever, and her streak would have run out if not for the kindness of one young boy who had ran into her when playing with his friends on the way home from school one day.

"Oh! I'm sorry," she apologized hastily when he ran into her. The dark-skinned kid looked several years younger than her and perhaps three or four inches smaller than her. Janna looked wistfully at the turnstiles just in front of her, but she had run out of tokens and had simply loitered around the entrance watching for people to make mistakes and drop their change. She started to back away. If the kid realized that she couldn't cross to the subway platform, he might make a big deal out of it.

"Nah, it's no problem," he mumbled, but when he turned to face her he simply looked at her with wide eyes, stuck standing still as if he had turned to stone. Janna didn't know if something had happened to him, but even if something did, she didn't have the tools to operate on him or give him medicine or something, so she once again tried to leave him alone. Finally, however, he spoke up.

"Hey, uh… y-you're really pretty," the boy stammered. Although she had tried to hold back, she flinched from the intended compliment. She'd heard other street vagrants throw out words like that, trying to mask their impure desires with sweet-smelling words. A couple of hands had gotten dangerously close to places they shouldn't have touched, and if she had not learned to run like the wind, she would've ended up getting caught and left to their perverse ways. They were another reason why she had to constantly move through the underground system - if someone caught on to one of her typical haunts, they could sneak up on her whilst she slept and take advantage of her.

But this shy boy in front of her had no such vile intentions, and she knew she couldn't equate this little crush to the wishes of those sinister men. "Well… that's really sweet, thank you." Still, Janna had to get out of there quickly, but she didn't know how to give this kid the slip without coming off too rude.

"Um… what's your name? Mine's Ekko," he squeaked.

Echo? She'd heard stranger names down in the slums, but… It didn't matter, she didn't really care. In any case, Janna couldn't think of a worse time to strike up a conversation, but his innocence just kept pulling her in. She considered making up a name, but no one ever saw her long enough to know her name anyways. "I'm Janna. It's… nice to meet you, Ekko," she said, all the while trying to think of ways to blow off their conversation.

"Are you headed towards the factory district?" the kid asked, his courage coming back to him. "Me and my friends all live there. You could come and play with us!"

Janna had thought of going that way, but she had no intention of making friends on the way, and definitely not with a group. "That sounds really nice, but I'm afraid I can't go with you right now. I'm… waiting for a later train."

Ekko cocked his head, confused as to why she'd do that. "But the next one's in two minutes and you don't want to wait for the one after that, it's really crowded. My mom tells me that I have to catch the 3:16 train else I won't be able to see my friends." He looked closely at her. "Do you have a token already? It's okay if you don't, my mom always gives me an extra dollar just in case," he offered, shoving a hand into a wrinkled pants pocket and fishing out the green bill.

The kid seemed to know exactly what circumstances Janna had found herself in. As much as she didn't want to take advantage of his charity, she did have to get out of the subway, and in the factory district she had the best chance of finding somewhere dry to spend the night. Janna took the money gratefully, rushing over to a token dispenser to get the golden coin. Ekko watched her from where he stood, and when Janna had come back successfully, he started running towards the turnstiles. "Hurry!" he urged, pushing through the metal bars onto the platform. Janna followed him, dropping the token into the slot and seeing the green light which allowed her to move past the turnstiles and join him as they waited for the upcoming train.

"Thank you a lot, Ekko. I really needed that," she said truthfully.

The dark irises of his eyes brightened. "It wasn't no problem. Anything for a pretty girl," he bragged, causing her to blush slightly.

When it had come to his stop, he turned to her before leaving. "Hey Janna, do you take this train every day?"

Janna considered a moment; while she did spend most of her time above ground near the school districts in the morning, she didn't exactly follow a strict schedule, moving around with the flow depending on traffic and the mannerisms of people. "Not all the time, but I'm here a lot."

Ekko looked like had just won the lottery. "Awesome! I come down here straight from school every day, so we can be subway buddies! If you ever need tokens I can give you some. And some time if you're not busy, maybe I can introduce you to my friends?"

Janna had to make sure she heard him correctly. He'd give her subway tokens whenever she asked? Ekko hardly looked like the son of a rich family with all the rips in his clothes and the faint stains of dirt on his sneakers. She chalked it up to children's tendency to make exaggerations, but something that had showed up in those eyes made her feel that he tried to be as sincere as possible. Her heart beat quicker as she began to consider the possibilities with excitement. Even if he gave her only one a day, that still opened up countless possibilities, and she could even revise her daily routines and paths around Zaun. Her feet would surely thank her for a lot less running away.

The doors had opened and people started to get off. She couldn't keep him away for long, and what he promised, if he was telling the truth, would take a lot off her plate. "That sounds nice, Ekko. Maybe someday."

"Someday," he agreed, leaping off the train onto the platform and waving to her through the window while she raised a tentative hand and the train took off once more.

It looked like her luck had done her a favor once again.

* * *

"...so now I'm beginning to understand. Thank you, Jayce, although I'm afraid that the conclusions we've reached means that we've opened a lot more possibilities than we'd previously accounted for."

"Glad to help. Yeah, it seems there was a connection between the time that Kassadin's systems had turned off temporarily and the whole system of Summoner's Rift shutting down for a second, but we're still not any closer to finding out the source."

"Are you two finally done with your technological blabbering? You've made our fair little lady over there doze off with that boring drabble. And what of the ice witch? Surely she must be involved in some way."

Janna jumped in her seat with the sudden awareness that came from jolting awake after slowly falling asleep. Forcing her eyes back open, she remembered their whereabouts - having lunch at the Crossing, when the restaurant had decidedly much thinner crowds. All three of her companions had looked over at her during the last statement, and even though she often had a spotlight on her and acted as the center of attention more than a few times, it still didn't stop Janna from reddening with embarrassment. Overly scientific discussion did bore her, though, and although she did her best to follow, once she lost track of the conversation she more often than not zoned out until the topic switched to something else.

"I must apologize for the low quality of conversational topics I've brought up in the past couple of days," the sheriff admitted, "but this case has took quite a turn for the serious. The magic used to power the nexii that keeps everything in a match on the Rift working properly is a different beast than your typical hextech, the magic of the elementalists of Demacia or Noxus, and even the power of the Void that Kassadin has been exposed to or that Malzahar wields. If someone can tamper with the essence of the type of magic that the summoners use, it cannot come from any of these sources."

"A lot of the magic running on around on Runeterra is still 'unclassified,'" Jayce chipped in. "No one's lived long enough in contact with the stuff on the Shadow Isles to understand from what the undead over there draw their power from, for example, and the magic in the ruined temples deep in the Kumungu Jungle is another mystery. The reason why they suspect the people of the Freljord that aren't under Ashe's jurisdiction, apart from them actually being at the scene of the crime, is that we haven't studied the power of True Ice either."

"That still makes little sense," Zyra protested. "We know that the struggle for power in the north was a three-pronged war, where all three sisters, as they say, fought against each other. There were no sorts of alliances or betrayal between the three. If we suspect Sejuani and Lissandra, and guess that some occult ice magic is at work here, are we not insinuating that they are working together?"

"Not necessarily," Caitlyn said. "These cases are definitely closely tied, but we don't mean that they're conspiring. We're just noting the source of Sejuani's magic, which isn't much. Summoners know her as a highly physical fighter who does everything with the strength of her flail and the boar."

"Correct. So what you could be referring to?" the plant sorceress asked.

"You forget the second weapon, something that a lot of people don't realize, even though it is a skill that sets her apart from other champions. The enchanted bola that she throws to encase those she hits in ice. It is made out of the same True Ice that Lissandra's spells use - and the scientists on the Institute's team have recently confirmed this when they made a study using the shards from the frozen tomb that she had created just before disappearing," the sheriff explained.

The leaves on Zyra's wrists bristled. "Intriguing. And this is different than the ice that the Frost Archer uses from, for example, the crystal arrows that she fires?"

"The bow of Avarosa is what the Freljordians refer to as pure ice, a different phylum than True Ice, so it's a different category there. Whether it is because less people understand it or because it is just less common, they consider it a more antiquated type of magic in the Freljord, and if that's the case, it can potentially be very dangerous if left unchecked," Caitlyn confirmed.

She must have looked like a deer in headlights, for Jayce noticed Janna's worried expression and reached over to pat her arm reassuringly. "Don't look so scared. 70% of everything Cait says is nothing more than speculation and conjecture, so we're making it sound like it's a bigger deal than it really is."

Caitlyn wanted to say something, but a sharp ringing coming from her purse shifted her attention. Taking out the offending appliance, she raised the cell phone to her ear. "Yes? … Another development? ...Yes, I'll be right there. ...Zyra's with me, no worries. ...Understood, we're on our way now."

"New intel?" the inventor guessed as Caitlyn hastily prepared to leave. The Rise of the Thorns rose from her seat as well, a mischievous smile still on her face as if Zyra saw the case more like a game than anything else.

"Yes - I'm so sorry having to leave you all of a sudden, but Kayle sounded quite desperate, so we have to get there as soon as we can," Caitlyn said hurriedly. She turned to look at Janna for a moment before sighing. "Janna - will you be alright without us? I know it doesn't happen that often, but -"

"Oh, give it a rest, Cait," Jayce angrily interrupted. "You're talking like Janna's never met me before. I've been around her just as long as you have and helped her out more than you've probably done, so don't treat me like some random stranger off the streets."

Caitlyn covered half her face with a hand as she turned away. "Ugh, I know, it's not your fault, it's just with everything going on right now and the incident with the exile, I was just concerned…"

Zyra had wrapped a thin vine around the sheriff's leg, urging her to come along.

"We'll be back tonight, probably," Caitlyn managed to say before running off with an apologetic look on her face.

Janna refused to look at Jayce, trying to interest herself in the plate that had once housed her lunch before finding it empty. She greatly appreciated the sheriff for allotting a portion of her time to make sure that she was okay whenever possible, but Janna didn't like whenever anyone, even her friends, brought up that condition. She only wanted for people to treat her normally, but just like the underground below Zaun, things were much more dangerous and complicated beneath the surface. Nothing about her childhood, her powers, her history, ever signified normal. If she really boiled it down, the Institute had gathered nothing but freaks, rarities, and abnormalities for this League of Legends. Why did it have to be so-

"Janna, I've got a question," Jayce spoke up after a while.

The wind mage looked up from the bowl. Jayce didn't have the angry tone that he had just addressed Caitlyn with, nor the overbearing tone that he always bothered her with after she recovered from one of the breakouts and found him by her bedside. No, he had just said something to her in a normal tone, as if they were just two friends shooting the breeze.

"What is it?"

"Do you remember how we first met?" he sheepishly asked.

She didn't think anyone in her position could ever forget. Her hope of finally attending school and pretending to act like a normal person had finally come true when she turned eighteen, when she headed towards the Yordle Academy of Science located in Piltover. Escaping from Zaun had posed little difficulty, as with the power of the winds flowing through her she would never have trouble with locomotion ever again. But while the bird could fly far from the nest, if it didn't find another roost, no matter how powerful its wings, it would inevitably crash.

Janna didn't know why she turned to the professor of the yordle academy rather than any of the very reputable institutes also located in Piltover - but it might have been the oddity of the organization that sealed the deal for her. Any university led by humans would've likely seized her when they learned of her ability to control the winds, or at the very least bring her unwanted attention. Contrary to what she would instinctively think, she believed she had the best chance of lying low if she brought herself to the yordles first and used her powers to convince them to provide her some temporary identification and other mandatory holdings to allow her to enroll into one of the colleges.

Her powers startled Professor Heimerdinger, to say the least. The yordle marveled at her ability to control the flow of every single particle in the room where he received her, and she held nothing back, rotating through the entire catalogue of abilities, from tempestuous gales to healing winds. Her display gave the professor an idea, a proposition which he offered to her. In exchange for keeping her powers a secret from the authorities, he would provide her with room and board, enough funds to pay for food and tuition at one of the community colleges, and a place to stay in the interim, so long as she agreed to experimentation by the professors at the institute. With her help, Heimerdinger said, they would make great breakthroughs in the fields of aerodynamics, and with a grateful heart, Janna accepted.

She had settled on a degree in Physics with a minor in Journalism, an odd choice that she couldn't quite explain, but felt that if she had to go down an alternative route should the career in science flop, she would want to overcome her fears and become able to appear in front of audiences - whether through interviewing, or broadcasting, getting over the instincts to avoid people would probably help her out.

That being said, on the first day of classes she still felt unbearably anxious, even though she only had to attend lectures and didn't have to do face-to-face talking… yet. Janna focused her attention on the subject presented on the screens and diligently took notes, losing herself in concentrating on the sciences. She had begun to think that this new life had a chance at succeeding, that perhaps she could carry out the normal life she had wanted in Zaun from the very beginning.

Only after the lecture did someone bother to get her attention, and she nearly dropped her books from the surprise. A young man with short brown hair and a button-down shirt one size too large forced a smile at her. She couldn't help but think of Ekko when she saw this man's hesitance. "Hey, are you a freshman, too? I was hoping to get to know some people in this class."

It seemed like a good idea in theory. Classmates that worked together could share notes and help each other study, among other things. Janna always hesitated around males that approached her, fearing that they would demand something from her, but the genuine interest in his voice, not to mention the fact that she wanted to get over her problem, made her desperate to take up his offer. She put on her best smile. "Yeah, it's my first day too. Nice to meet you."

He extended a hand, and it took all of Janna's willpower to reach out and shake it. "Name's Jayce, Jayce Taylor. Might I have the pleasure of knowing yours?"

When creating official records that the city could look up, Janna she realized she never knew her last name, and although Heimerdinger had told her she could simply make up one, she wanted to completely reset her identity when she entered a new city. "I'm Claire Aurelian. Are you in the sciences, too?"

"Yep!" he said proudly. "Chemical engineering here. You're looking at the next big thing to walk the streets of Piltover!"

"I did not sound that ridiculous!" the present-day Jayce protested, causing Janna to giggle. He had always aspired high, and it came to everyone's biggest surprise when he had single-handedly infiltrated the Zaunite lab of the Machine Herald and brought back the crystal assigned to him. Jayce had only expected to create a great invention to grace the scientific journals and get him fame in the technological world, but with the birth of the Mercury Hammer he had also become a face of salvation for the aspiring City of Progress.

"You shouldn't be embarrassed," the wind mage told him. "Unlike a lot of people, your bark wasn't worse than your bite. You've come a long way!"

"Yeah, and what about you, Claire?" Jayce teased. "It was a real shock when one of my classmates revealed herself to be a sorceress of the wind!"

"It was hard, you know," she confessed, "coming to a big city alone, without knowing anyone. The power I had was supposed to be so nice, but I found myself wanting to hide it more than anything else. Even though I knew Piltover would be one of the most accepting societies of people with magic, I just… I just wanted to be normal."

"Haven't you heard? Normal is the new weird," Jayce told her. He lifted a hand to the tables around them. "Look everywhere you go, there's not a single person here without some kind of cracked-up gift in the League. If there's anywhere you can feel welcome, it should be here. You've got a bunch of friends that all love to be around each other. No chance of being alone, either."

He looked at here with some of the most sincerest eyes she had ever known, but still she felt doubt. Was it all the time she spent trading in counterfeit bills to make ends pay when she still walked the alleyways in Zaun that made her so cognizant of the insincerity in others? Even in her closest friends, Janna felt the shadow that hid within the light, the villain that lurked around the corner, waiting to bring heroes to their knees, and the beast that sought to devour the weak, tearing them apart with their own insecurities. She really, really wanted to take comfort in his words, but could he do more than give her promises? How could they guarantee her asylum from this dangerous world?

She felt a strong hand grip hers. Janna thought of pulling back, but the warmth of the hold stayed her hand.

"I know you keep lapsing back into worry. I understand what you've been through and you're worried about it coming back up again. But now, I need you to understand my point of view. You're one of my closest friends, Janna, and we share a bond that I wouldn't let break for anything in the world. Do you trust me?" Jayce asked.

Janna looked back at him, and all the shadows had dissipated from his complexion. They still threatened to pull at her, surrounding her from the back, but if she never let go…

"I trust you."

"Then I will protect you," he promised.

* * *

 **A/N:** Janna's fake name has a few references to air in it - first of course is the 'air' in Claire, second is that 'Aurelia' in Latin was a girl's name meaning golden-haired and it's close to Aura which also refers to air in Greek.

She can't help that she attracts the male champions even though she's afraid of half of them. Apparently Ekko as of now is 16/17, but apparently Vi/Jinx are a few years older and I place Jayce and Janna around their age.

Ekko will show up in the present-day of this story, but not in a way you'd imagine...


	10. A Cloud of Crows

The local security officer pulled back the giant metal vault door, ready to expose the interior for the police force to examine. A looming dark space greeted them, a miniature cavern extending twenty feet back into the walls and outfitted with nothing but shelves to separate stock. If Caitlyn hadn't known better, she would have treated it as a newly constructed storage room by the lack of any traces pointing towards the fact that a robbery had taken place here. Whoever had infiltrated the bank, they had make sure to wipe the floor clean from the stains of their heinous deeds.

Everything but the small folded card lying on the floor, a piece of simple stationery that had only one thing inscripted on it, the letter C written in ornate calligraphy.

From town to town, across the country and even across the seas, the suspect that she had never managed to pin down had teased her for years, lying tantalizingly close and seemingly within her grasp before they found the meager trail of crumbs go cold. Only this criminal with a mocking alias had the wit and audacity to never allow themselves to come into contact with the ruthless officer of the law, a prodigal sleuth who had never failed to solve a challenge or unmask a villain up until that point. And just like the last piece to a jigsaw puzzle, or a small flaw to an otherwise perfectly stitched Shuriman carpet, the blemish on Caitlyn's record haunted her in the spirit of every case that followed, infiltrating her dreams just easily and always coming in the form of that pretentious calling card.

Her colleagues told her that when they next saw her her eyes had seemed to grow eight years older, earning the scars of a veteran soldier coming from war simply through the effort of undergoing one case. Even though Caitlyn had experienced her fair share of hardships, she had always just thought of struggle as something to evaluate and simply devise a solution. When her father had fallen victim to the highwaymen and robbers that ran rampant on the outskirts of Piltover, she didn't bother running to her father and offer him consolement - as soon as she had finished her dinner she excused herself, went to the garage to borrow the family rifle, and jumped out her bedroom window to rush straight to the crime scene. When the Grand Clock Tower had received a bomb threat which threatened to strike in ninety minutes, Caitlyn didn't think of calling for an immediate evacuation. She headed straight up the floors to find the deadly package and call in the bomb squad to disarm the detonator with only thirty seconds to spare. When the feared serial killer Cipher had revealed to the public his next four victims if he did not receive his demands, Caitlyn didn't balk at the pressure and give in. Personally seeking out one of the young girls the would-be murderer had targeted, she and her team lay in waiting for the man to make his move before turning his own plan against him. Everything would see its resolution eventually if Caitlyn simply turned in its direction, and any trial just needed a definite answer to the question it posed. And in keeping with the legends from the detective novels she read as a young girl, Caitlyn would always deliver.

"It would worry me more if you always had an answer for everything, honestly," Vi told her one day while Caitlyn pored over some files for a case they had received not long after the first 'C' debacle. "If you were never confused over a problem, well, where I come from we call that a machine."

"Machines don't have the logical thinking and problem skills that humans have," Caitlyn said, not tearing her eyes off from her notes for a second. "Just one of the reasons why a completely digitized world wouldn't work."

"But you still shouldn't compensate for losing that 'C' guy that you work yourself to death, Cupcake," her partner advised her. "You've got an entire chain of command with you that will gladly take time out of their days if their Sheriff needed assistance. There's no need to carry all the responsibility yourself. They called you a prodigy back then because you were always so far ahead of the curve, right? Well, drop that. If you kept trying to climb higher than the Caitlyn of yesterday had climbed then you'd be well into space by now."

It often took reality checks like that one Vi gave her to keep Caitlyn from blowing up over her own obsession with success and finding the way to make loose ends meet, but that didn't stop Caitlyn from making a fuss about a lot of other things in retribution. Many of her subordinates showed skepticism when she had become elevated to the position of head of the Piltover police force considering the extremely high standards she had for her employees, but they soon learned to cope with her compulsiveness once people understood that witnessing brilliance and talent came with the price of having to pay tribute to the ego that bore them.

Once she had joined the League, her subordinates had forced her to cede some of her responsibilities so she could focus on her individual performance in matches on the Fields of Justice, and it seemed to help Caitlyn relax, for the high stakes and pressure of tracking down criminals day after day made both her and Vi well suited to the intricacies of battle even though they did not have war experience that the majority of champions did. For the most part, the summoners managed the infrastructure at the Institute, giving the sheriff a much-needed vacation, although she instinctively felt the need to walk up to some unruly summoners and flash her credentials before Vi restrained her time and reminded her that she didn't have the authority to put someone in handcuffs there.

So when Councillor Kolminye had come to her to ask her assistance, Caitlyn had secretly been very enthusiastic to dust her skills off and get back to tackling cases. And even though she had one quarry still very much wanted and out there on the loose, she still had a nearly flawless record to uphold. The people behind the infiltration of the Institute could not hide in the shadows, for the Sheriff of Piltover had come to flush them out into the light.

That was what she kept telling herself, at least, as she ran to answer the summons from the High Councillor once more, the red-haired mage at her side moving surprisingly quickly.

"What sort of thing did they uncover now?" Zyra asked once they had entered the Trial Building, the place where Kolminye had told them to meet.

"Another anomaly in energy, although what that entailed, I haven't the foggiest idea," Caitlyn said. "Considering this being the Institute, as well as the things that have already happened, I'd wager it being quite serious."

They heard the problem before they saw it. The maddening squawking of crows rang throughout the corridor, and they could barely make out the sounds of spell casts and lightning flying as the summoners on hand tried to contain the disturbance. Caitlyn looked at the numbers of the doors going by as they continued to ran. Four… five… six… "Oh no. Don't tell me…"

"What is it?" Zyra wanted to know.

"It's the Harbinger."

The Institute's summoners never told them why exactly they confined a champion to such an odd space, but during every champion's induction, the High Councillors told them to never attempt to open summoning chamber seven. If someone ever had the misfortune to enter that door, that meant that the High Council had sentenced them to death, and the Institute didn't say a word further. But that didn't stop the rumors from flying on the multitude of whispers, people saying that in that room a summoning to reach out into another world had gone wrong, and that instead of interacting with a supernatural creature, the conduits had failed and shortcircuited somewhere along the way, resulting in the arrival of a demon, the likes of which they had never seen before. Others said that the abomination was the daring summoner himself, who had read of an arcane metamorphosis spell that had claimed to give one immeasurable power, but had actually doomed himself to such a terrible form instead. Caitlyn didn't know which to believe, or whether anyone actually knew the real truth lying out there somewhere, but she did know one thing.

If anyone heard the murder of crows shrieking at their back, it was most likely already too late.

"Let's hurry," Caitlyn told her companion, removing the strap holding her rifle from around her neck and running towards the corner. It seemed that the summoners had kept him at bay, at least temporarily, and they wouldn't have to fear an attack by ambush which the monster preferred, but even when you could see him in front of you, it didn't make the experience any less dreadful.

The woman of thorns moved up beside Caitlyn as she peered around the corner, sizing up the situation. The corridor looked unnaturally dark although the Institute always kept lights on in public hallways. She could make out the scarecrow figure, a ring of arcane energy around him like the readings on a heat map, attaching several tethers to the summoners trying to restrain him. Thousands of crows flocked wildly around them, some pecking at their heads and upper body. That explained the dim lighting in the room - the crows had so densely clumped together that they had blotted out the ceiling lights. The sheriff saw a couple of summoners already lying on the ground, grabbing their hands in terror, and Caitlyn could not blame them - getting too close to him would result in one's petrification and a feeling of complete despair as you helplessly tried to run away. And when such a champion successfully pulled the element of surprise multiple times throughout a match on the Rift, not only did the sadistic summoner controlling them pull ahead, but it struck uncertainty in the other team. Would you want to check that bush in the river, knowing very well that it would lead to a gruesome death?

The presence of Fiddlesticks could shatter the spirits and rattle the bones of even the most battle-hardened warriors.

To keep him at bay, the majority of the summoners fighting to keep him under restraints chose to use the medium of fire. It proved rather effective against the mock scarecrow, forcing the crows he had summoned away, and the type of fire summoners wielded reduced a target's healing, rendering the draining tethers he had sent out slightly less effective, although since he longer had his powers confined by the special limitations of the rift, Fiddlesticks fought with attacks a lot more potent than expected. Caitlyn, on the other hand, didn't change much off the rift than on. Although no one would bet against her to miss a shot from within fifty meters, shooting at supernatural creatures was a whole different story to incapacitating fleeing criminals. She remembered the many times the scarecrow had joked about his lack of a brain. Which meant that the usually effective tactic of putting a bullet through the brain wouldn't work as well as she would expect.

But it didn't mean she wouldn't try. Moving around to get a closer shot, farther than they usually let her shoot normally on the rift and allowing her to stay out of the range of his influence (at least from what she remembered when she had to play against Fiddlesticks, what was to say that his powers could reach longer when outside the constraints of the summoner's battleground?), Caitlyn held the rifle high, her body turned sideways, and took her aim. Fortunately, Fiddlesticks did not seem to move a lot. Not wasting a second after she had locked onto the target, she pulled the trigger.

Not a scratch. The scarecrow had turned his attention to her for a moment or two, but he had more urgent preoccupations, and went back to tormenting the summoners that tried to burn him down. A crackle of lightning went down along one of the tethers and crackled through him, which did manage to crumple a few of the crows, but hardly seemed to slow him down.

Fortunately she hadn't come here without some magical firepower of her own, and beside her, Zyra began to take action, casting seeds all around the area. Extending an arm to her left, the seeds quickly transformed into fully animated plants, red roses launching seeds at the scarecrow. With her right hand she sent a couple of vines racing through the floor, ensnaring Fiddlesticks in place as the vines made contact with a pair of seeds planted next to the creature, summoning up a clump of mutated poison ivy that tore at Fiddlesticks with razor sharp leaves. Her children seemed to have some kind of effect on the harbinger, stopping two of his channels and forcing Fiddlesticks to allocate some of the flock towards tearing the plants apart. Caitlyn would've thought the birds had the upper hand in dealing with plants, but she underestimated their ferocity, and even as the crows clawed the leaves off from the stems, the plants strangled a few of the blackwings as they went down.

The summoners had realized that backup had arrived, but most of them stayed concentrated on their tasks, several constantly on the move to keep themselves away, at least temporarily, from the wrath of Fiddlesticks' flock. One of them, limping away from the influence of the scarecrow with a hunched over pose, stole away long enough to get Caitlyn's attention. "Councillor Kolminye?" the sheriff asked, surprised that the High Councillor herself had gone on the battlefield to repel Fiddlesticks.

The middle-aged woman put a hand to the wall to lean against it, catching her breath. "Finally. We… don't know what happened, but on their way to oversee a match… a couple of summoners noticed some noises coming from chamber seven, some scratching noise. They went to investigate, and they barely got within arms' range of the door… before it broke loose." She turned away to put up an energy shield to protect them as Caitlyn saw a couple of crows spread from one of the summoners on the ground towards them.

"Those first two died right on the spot, and the rest are likely to suffer permanent brain damage if we do not get the crows away from them in time," Kolminye continued. "But he is strong, and there is only so much we summoners can do without the help of either runic weapons or the aid of champions."

Beside them, Zyra had conjured up a second wave of vegetation. "My children shall be avenged… and you will be ripped to shreds for this demonic flock of crows, monster!" Out of her arm which had sprout forth flower petals, Zyra sent out a barrage of thorns that pierced through Fiddlesticks, forcing the figure back. The summoners followed up at this first step of progress, one of them firing a spear of ice at the scarecrow's legs to freeze him from the ground up. Immediately the channels stopped, and for a second Fiddlesticks began to look surprised before he vanished from sight. The cloud of crows disappeared along with him, and with the increase in light, Caitlyn could better make out the amount of summoners who had come down in the attempt to contain the rogue champion. Kolminye had brought a dozen, if one counted the ones sprawled out on the floor, who continued to labber on about darkness and the endless beating of wings. Caitlyn shuddered at seeing at what they had degraded into.

Another three fell to their knees, physically and mentally worn out. "Is it over?" a voice asked wearily, while Kolminye continued to frown as she looked around as if Fiddlesticks had left a stray bird or two. Caitlyn wouldn't know when they had completely exhausted the scarecrow - on the rift, he behaved like a regular scarecrow once champions had taken away his health, simply falling to the ground when defeated. Seeing as how the Institute could not get rid of him, the summoners probably had no clue as to what happened to him either. The feeling of dread returned, and Caitlyn didn't feel any safer in the scarecrow's absence.

Zyra seemed on edge as well. "I cannot tell where he is, if he is still around… but the earth is complaining. There is still a disturbance."

"He is still around," Kolminye warned. "You should all know him well, he-"

Caitlyn found herself thrown off her feet, landing hard on the ground after being knocked back fifteen feet or so against the wall, her rifle slamming into her chest. A wave of heat seemed to crash into her, burning at her skin although she couldn't feel the flames, and when she looked up she witnessed in horror the form of Fiddlesticks back once again in his storm of crows, blackening the room and spreading the sensation of death and decadence all around him. Caitlyn felt like her skin would melt away, and some force kept her locked down onto the ground where she could only lie there in horror and watch the crows swarm over her. A row of sharp beaks pecked away at her, jabbing into her skull as she could not even lift her arms up in retaliation.

The earth began to shake, and when Caitlyn feared that worse would come, she felt vines race around her, covering the floor in roots and thorns that didn't seem to pierce her - Zyra had unleashed the complete form of her power. After a short pause, the earth seemed to move like an ocean wave, and while Caitlyn felt little more than a gentle rocking, the birds immediately flew off her, and the bed of vines flung Fiddlesticks into the air, able to take advantage of his inability to avoid the knockup without the special hourglass available on the rift. Caitlyn didn't feel any stronger, and she certainly didn't think she could contribute to the fight with all the wounds she had taken, but at least the fiendish crows had left her. It seemed the summoners now had the scarecrow under control, for they had broken each of his attempts to create a tether and suck energy out of him, and more spears of ice froze him in place while one summoner created a makeshift torch out of his hands, waving around a pillar of flame to drive the crows off.

When she managed to pull herself up into a sitting position, Caitlyn realized why the summoners had all avoided the brunt of the scarecrow's abilities. Fiddlesticks had strangely focused down one target after his reappearance, and she lay in front of him now, curled on the ground and her body contorted at strange angles as she suffered the full brunt of the crowstorm. Despite its weakened state due to the constrictions the summoners held on to Fiddlesticks, Kolminye still looked completely devastated.

"Get out of my sight, scarecrow," Zyra lashed out, extending her hand into a whip with thorns all over it and smacking Fiddlesticks in the side of the head. The harbinger recoiled, already flailing with the pillars of ice trapping his lower half. He still remained standing, although Caitlyn felt that he really had no other option. Try as he might to summon up another instance of his power, it seemed Fiddlesticks had gone down for the count, and the crows completely dissolved.

Caitlyn felt strong enough - barely - to rise to her feet, and she hobbled over to the prone figure of Fiddlesticks and the body of the High Councillor on the floor, surrounded by her junior summoners. "Istvaan… you fool," she croaked.

"Councillor Kolminye!" one summoner exclaimed. "You must hold on!"

The councillor coughed, starting a series of progressively worse wheezing. "I… I will not be taken down so easily, you can count on that." Kolminye attempted to raise a hand, and when one of the summoners tried to push it down, she furiously tried to sit up, wildly pointing in front of her.

Fiddlesticks had cracked open the half-tomb, or at least partially moved. The scarecrow's normally lifeless eyes suddenly glowed a fierce red, and he summoned up the strength to throw one crow at the High Councillor before the summoners once again restrained him. The bird grew in size as it headed for the councillor, and it shrieked, ready to sink its talons into her.

The thwack of an arrow caught the winged beast in midair and it missed its target, careening wildly to the side as a black mist rushed in from the side of the room and dove into it. Caitlyn looked closer, seeing that it was not some cloud, but rather the spirit of a wolf, with only its head in a distinguishable form while the rest of its body lost its shape to a black wispy mixture. Following the wolf came a theriomorphic figure, who walked on two feet but had hooves like a sheep. A black canine-esque mask covered its face, and its whole body seemed covered in wool. The arrow from before must have come from its bow, a pure white weapon as colorless as the fur of its owner. Fiddlesticks' crow had managed to fight back the wolf, tossing him aside momentarily before once again descending upon Kolminye. The lamb had come prepared, however.

"Your time is not now," she proclaimed, a raised hand placing a circular area of protection over the councillor. While the bird hit its mark, its claws seemed to have no effect, and while it tried in confusion to pierce the councillor's skin again and again, Lamb had fired another arrow into its side, while Wolf successfully tackled it. By then the summoners had restrained the crow as well, and when the circle vanished, the crow breathed its last before vanishing.

"The Kindred…" Kolminye muttered as she met Lamb's stare. "Never did I think I would bring in a champion that would bring me to my own destiny…"

"Champions," Lamb corrected. "Wolf and I are a team. You cannot call upon my power…"

"...without me tagging along!" Wolf yelped excitedly.

"What are you here for?" Zyra asked bluntly.

They turned to the plant mage, Lamb thinking for a few seconds while Wolf returned to his habitual orbit around her. "We are always here to receive death. But it was supposed to be the destruction of this scarecrow, and not the Councillor. Your summoners have tampered with his fate, however."

"Death?" one of them asked. "Can he - it - whatever it is even die?"

"All things have an end, even the ones of the Shadow Isles that try to cheat us from our dues," Lamb declared.

"We remember!" Wolf added.

"But sadly, whatever you did to him has forced him into another realm," the archer pointed out. Caitlyn followed her gesture towards the pillar of ice that they had trapped Fiddlesticks in. The body seemed there, although completely motionless.

"A puppet of the true life essence that lives in that creature," Lamb said. "That spirit has moved on." She looked off to the distance, contemplating. "So this is the signal that has distressed us so."

"What do you mean?" Kolminye asked.

"The ones that cheat death have a strange scent," Wolf growled.

"We sensed it first three days ago," Lamb said. "The Void Walker's life seemed to shine its last bright flames, but it was denied from us. Something is sewing in a few knots in the threads of life."

"That was when the energy for the nexii that control the matches on the rift broke down," Caitlyn pointed out. "Do you know anything about it?"

Lamb looked at her curiously. Suddenly Caitlyn regretted saying anything, as if contributing and making herself an object of attention had reduced her lifespan several years. "It does not come from this world. We are certain of that. And it seems like it is nearby again."

"What?" the High Councillor asked. "What do you mean?"

A rumble began to rattle the earth beneath their feet. Caitlyn struggled to keep her balance as the corridor continued shaking, and Zyra placed a hand against the wall, but Lamb continued to stand peacefully as if nothing happened. "What's going on?" the Piltoverian tried to shout above the noise.

"The other dimension is spilling over into this world. The force that is messing with our sense of death," Lamb explained.

And sure enough, a huge portal appeared in the middle of the hallway, a spherical opening which revealed a purple empty space when looked at from any angle. The air around it began to compress, and the tomb that housed the empty shell of Fiddlesticks began to move, uprooting itself from the floor and heading into the center of the portal like being sucked up by a vacuum.

"Whatever is attempting to contact us," Lamb said, "lies on the other side of this plane."

* * *

 **A/N:** Fiddle's actually quite the little bitch, I didn't realize how long his fear was until I got wrecked by him in an ARAM and looked up the duration. 2.5 seconds might as well be Morgana binding on point and click.

Kindred's fun to write as well, although when you get Lamb and Wolf talking dialogue begins to take up a lot of the page. I want to get better at playing them (I call Kindred her a lot instinctively cause you're basically controlling Lamb but w/e) but in a game of no tanks it's not fun being a squishy carry, even if your ult does save you temporarily. Your top laner has to be some kind of tank for it to work and well, Yasuo/Irelia/Jax/Gangplank are not tanks. Not to mention she's just another AD when it's Yasuo meta and he goes mid more often than not. Maybe I should just buy Elise


	11. An Ultimatum in Snow

Days like this one only arrived once every few years, and only presented themselves to a few fortunate regions of Valoran. Despite its island status, which usually indicated a temperate climate for the majority of the year, the centermost parts of Ionia, particularly the mountains, could usually count themselves lucky to receive the blessing of such days.

Lately Syndra hadn't mustered up a complete appreciation for occasions like this. She had spent the last several years separated from the land and its natural climate, keeping herself closed off to the wonders of the natural world within the cold walls of her levitating temple with only stone and mortar to keep her company. A solitary hermit like her could not reap the full benefits of these blessed days, for her elevated location made it so that she only received the stormy winds and passings of sleet that rent the air, the ghastly chorus of winter's symphony swirling, twisting, tugging through the air in an incomprehensible cacophony that Syndra understandably closed her doors and windows to whenever she dared to peek her head outside for a second.

When she had transferred residence to the Institute, the fleeting instances of the blustery weather left her perception, for in such a centralized region of Valoran, the weather settled down to become decidedly more moderate. Even during the time of Snowdown, the particles of precipitation which the name implied did not manifest themselves in particularly large amounts. The specks of white would gently drop from the sky in amounts only small enough to create a thin sheen layer over the grounds, not even close enough to construct anything out of the snow like she used to do with the other children when she was still very young. Even at that age, Syndra loved to construct, bringing to life the imaginations her mind conjured up with an ethereal medium, a beautiful substance that seemed to fall from heaven itself. She had built miniature scaled castles with the snow that fell on empty fields, visualizing herself as a princess that dwelled in a medieval kingdom, making up fantastic stories of knights and princes and gallant tales of a time that Ionia had not known since the period of the Four Kingdoms.

The sovereign had mellowed out a little since her originally troubled days, when she had trouble trying to adjust the exponentially growing power at her fingertips with the infuriatingly stagnant world that trapped her. When the summoners had, in the series of events that allowed her to join the League, dared her to break their preconceived notions of humanity's drawn boundaries of magic, Syndra had smiled gleefully at the challenge. So far she had not even come close to the reach of infinity, but she still felt herself rising steadily, her mind unlocking more and more subsequent orders of the magnitude of power. With plenty of time to let her carry out her labors, she had decided to bring her work to a short halt, noticing the special circumstances of the day and choosing to indulge in another hobby that brought her nearly as much satisfaction. The chilling winds snapped at the thick cloak that she had tightly wrapped around her, and the snow slowly descended from the sky in thick packets, blanketing the ground in a sea of vanilla. The smoky white particles that had accumulated on the ground rose much higher than the typical amount that she used to observe at the Institute, which made the pursuit of her efforts possible. Her boots had half submerged into the thick quagmire of snow, seven inches high above the ground, but she did not mind it even though it made walking difficult. The subject that she sought after had stopped moving, perhaps twenty paces in front of her, rather unaware of her watchful presence, and she knew that the fateful moment had come.

Pouring all of her concentration into the opaque sphere which levitated alongside her, Syndra closed her eyes, her natural vision replaced with a dark grid that allowed her to sense the energy of her surroundings. Finding her target in the alternative sight mode, the sorceress adjusted her stance to the side and prepared for the execution, her inherent energy providing a rushing sensation that coursed through her veins. Pushing the power outwards, toward her fingertips, she positioned the sphere accordingly, and began the launching procedure. The snowball soared through the air and Syndra followed its trajectory intently as the projectile moved in a dazzling arc, its collision with her target all but imminent.

The dark shape in the distance simply sent out a shadow, the silhouette moving a short distance out of the way before he transmuted his form into the shadow, watching the snowball collapse onto the ground where he had originally stood and shatter into the white dust from which it had come.

"Zed!" Syndra shouted furiously, her hands balling into fists as she stamped a boot into the snow. "You're not making this fun at all!"

The Master of Shadows slowly turned his head in her direction, gloved hands tightly shoved into his pockets. "What is so fun about being pelted in the head by globs of snow?"

Syndra took up another pile of snow into her hands, letting her powers shape it into another perfectly spherical ball and adding it to the two others floating around her in figure-eight orbits. "How could you not appreciate such conducive material for world-creating? One can make this snow into any form they desire. I had mastered the creative power of winter ever since the first day I stepped outside in the snow!" she boasted, lifting a pile of snow a square meter in area off the ground, shaping it into a cube, and launching her three snow spheres at it, smashing the form into millions of speckled pieces which rocketed in every direction and splattering both Syndra and Zed, despite the latter's agility and attempts to avoid the spray with his shadows.

The ninja wiped some of the residue off the red scarf he wore around his neck, a gift she had insisted he take last Snowdown. A proud champion like Zed would never have admitted that the cold bothered him, but she soon found that he didn't hold as much resistance to the chilly weather as he swore he had one night when he stumbled into a fit of coughing. She had graciously housed in his moment of weakness, a warm bowl of soup and a thick blanket around his shoulders neutralizing the effects of winter long enough while she went out to swipe some pills from the medical ward. An overbearing gesture, perhaps, for such a trivial matter, but she made sure to bring Zed into as much of a state of indebtedness as she could. She noted that the ninja never once complained about the scarf once he had put it on for the record dropping temperature that the Institute had experienced last New Year's Eve.

"It is only crystalline water," he protested, sidestepping another hopeful throw from the sorceress. Zed continued walking off towards what remained of the forest, now a smattering of trees bereft of leaves since the first day of December, thin and black outlines against the gigantic grey sky which served as a background for their little expedition. He had chosen to forgo the high-laced boots that Syndra had brought along, his footsteps unnaturally shallow as they made small impressions on the field of white.

"What a rather dull, alchemical way of looking at it." Syndra rolled her eyes, quickening her pace to catch up to her companion. Zed did not protest when she hooked her arm around the crook of his - if he did, his complaints went silently - and sidled up along his shoulder as they walked. It slowed down his pace, Syndra making sure to interfere with his movement as possible. A man so independent as Zed painted a huge target on himself, and whenever Syndra didn't delve into her studies of what people called unattainable power, she would pester him, annoy him, and generally inconvenience him.

"I can see why people as secretive like you never did any operations in the winter, though," Syndra noted. "Not a single inch of cover. Your clothing choice would stick out on a white field for miles."

Zed came to a stop, turning to face the woman only an inch shorter than him. Remarkably taller than average at all ages, Syndra took a lot of pride in not having to look up at all when speaking to the ninja face-to-face. And I wouldn't have to stand on my toes if I were to… "It's not a matter of camouflage," Zed insisted, interrupting her mischievous train of thought.

Syndra huffed, pulling herself away from him to leave Zed with his stubbornness, twirling a half circle away. "I had a couple of snowballs in my hand when I first discovered my magic," she told him. "I was playing with some of the children in my village during the days of Snowdown, when the snow fell thick enough that our feet actually sank down in it. One of the boys struck me with one, and at first I got really angry. How dare he throw a bundle of snow at me! So I swore I could get back at him. The entire time that all my friends threw snow at one another, I stayed off to the side, taking my time to mold the perfect snowball. And when I was ready, I held one in each hand, tingling with the anticipation to unleash my masterpiece."

The Master of Shadows looked quite bored from her story, but Syndra kept his attention on her by raising the three spheres threateningly while she spoke, spinning them around to ready their flight at a moment's notice. While Zed could prove a slippery target, and a shadow to instantly change places with would certainly come in handy if he needed to avoid any thrown objects, Syndra stood so close to him that she would hit at least one of them. So she continued. "But what I beheld was something much greater than what just my hands created. The snowballs came to life in my hands, floating above my touch, responding to the slightest of my touch. I understood it was magic, that it was something that set me apart. And to my surprise I didn't feel scared at the least. It felt empowering, like I had just reached an important point in my life."

Syndra stepped forward, within arms reach of Zed, who dodged the snow that splashed towards him when her foot collided with the ground. She stretched out her arms like a trapeze artist would do on a tightrope. "Something very important was calling to me, waiting for me to answer to its song."

"Wrap it up already," the former Kinkou said impatiently. "Just tell me what you did."

A frown flickered on Syndra's face for a few milliseconds before her smile came back. "There was only one thing to do," she stated, creeping closer to him, her purple eyes staring right into the eyeholes of his mask. One of the spheres revolving around her form suddenly surged at an incredible velocity at Zed, who couldn't quite move in time and took the projectile to the side of the head.

"That," Syndra finished.

She didn't know whether Zed had taken a meditative stance or had just lost the ability to move his joints after realizing that he - yes, you, big bad master of shadows - had received the full onslaught of a giant snowball specifically crafted for chucking at other people. But when Zed did break out of his subpar imitation of a statue, Syndra quickly backed away, for she realized with horror what he began to do.

Zed had dropped to one knee, hastily shoveling snow into his palms, molding them into the same spherical forms that she had done before coming after her, a soundless fury to his movements. His sculpting could have used some work, and his throwing arc not as strong as her magic, but Zed's throws had an intensity behind them, a killing instinct which only an assassin that had mastered the forbidden art of the shadow had obtained. Syndra kicked off the ground and transitioned into the slight glide that she exhibited on the rift, where she could not afford to trip on some random rock or root lying in the middle of everything, and quickly made space between them, turning around in mid-air to see the directions in which Zed aimed his snowballs.

The first two throws she could avoid, for her increased maneuverability granted by her motion in air provided the flexibility needed to dodge to the side and under, and in a short period of defiance she aimed another sphere at Zed, but she did not have the point blank proximity from before, and her throw went wide in vain. Zed's third snowball seemed easy enough to dodge, and it barely skimmed by as Syndra threw herself to the left in time, but another snowball collided with her left temple. Her hand came up to her head instinctively from the onset of pain, but Syndra seemed more wounded by the fact that he had managed to hit her. How had he done it? Glancing to her left, she beheld with horror the wispy form of his shadow that had thrown the offending projectile. Her eyes narrowed and her entire body simmered with rage.

"You twisted, cheating, scoundrel!" she yelled in his direction, forming a fourth sphere from the snow. "I can't believe you made your shadow throw for you!"

"It is an imitation of me," she heard Zed say into her ear as another snowball found the back of her neck, causing her to shiver at its icy touch. Crying out again in both surprise and frustration, Syndra's body became a blur of movement as she removed one of the snowballs from her orbit, throwing it right behind her while she turned around in mid-air and threw it back, hoping to collide with Zed. She caught sight of him roll out of the way in time, however, and with an annoyed growl picked it up with an invisible tether, threatening to drop the snowball on top of him. Zed, who had the material disadvantage of having to continually create snowballs when his ammunition ran out, knelt on the ground restocking his supply when her assault came. She had forced him to use his shadow as a last resort maneuver to dodge the dropping object, allowing Syndra some easy shots at him with the three remaining around her. Although Zed ducked the first one, she had positioned it to further compromise his position: the next two struck him firmly in the chest.

Brushing off the splattered remains of snow, Zed moved towards her once more. Her advantage had rejuvenated her good mood, and Syndra leapt away from his advances over and over almost playfully, teasing him to get in a satisfactory hit. While he could clearly outrun her on the Fields of Justice and single her out successfully, the thick terrain worked to her in advantage as it only impeded his movement rather than hers. In addition, snowballs perfectly substituted to her own dark spheres, while Zed seemed considerably clumsier with the childish weapons than with his own razor shurikens.

The ninja was trying to use the terrain to rectify his disadvantage, as Syndra noticed that with every duck and weave he drew closer to a couple of dying blackened trees on the outskirts of the forest line. He wouldn't have come so far without innovating occasionally when things turned south, a fact that set him apart from her, Syndra had to acknowledge. While she had come so far on the strength of her sheer power and ability, Zed could not simply muscle through his enemies; the shadow arts did give him power leagues over the limits of regular men, but he had to rely on it more to outwit and manipulate his opponents. Just one of the sole reasons she had taken such a liking to him.

Zed dove behind a fallen tree trunk to dodge her latest sphere throw. Syndra had watched this trick happen to so many other champions on the rift that she could dictate what happened next like a movie script. They would either stumble in blindly, leaving themselves open to the combined attacks from himself and his shuriken before he cast his death mark and put an end to them, or he would send the shadow off out of their vision before exchanging with it, placing his would-be pursuer into the compromised location. Syndra knew all the tricks in his book too well, deciding to stay put and continue piling on more snow spheres for when Zed dared to peek his head out from behind the decaying wood.

She quickly grew impatient, however, during her vigil of his hiding place, wondering how long he would wait for her to come for him in frustration. He could test her patience well enough, but her desire to win far outstripped her restlessness, and Syndra prepared herself to stand at attention for hours if the need arose. She would not lose this duel. The trunk and the snow all around it did not betray any of Zed's movements, however, and so their stalemate continued.

So focused she had become, therefore, on Zed's alleged hiding place that she did not notice him charging from the opposite side of the forest line, from the side of the snow. A desperate Syndra had launched one of the snowballs at him to force him back while she recollected herself, but he easily dodged the ball with the help of his shadow and then teleported a second time behind her, the recognizable form of the Death Mark appearing above her.

Three snowballs, two from the shadows and one from Zed himself, embedded themselves into her winter clothing, and although Syndra tried to cast the spheres behind her, the ninja caught her outstretched hand in a firm lock and quickly threw her to the ground, pinning her legs under his own. The red eye sockets of his mask glowed as he knelt above her triumphantly. If he hadn't exposed her in such an infuriating defeat, she might've liked the position.

"How did you… what…" Syndra could only stammer as she thought back to the events that had just transpired and tried to find the blind spot in her plans. Then it came to her - the form that had darted behind the tree trunk had not been Zed, but merely the shadow sent out to pretend setting a trap. The real Master of Shadows had actually ducked behind another tree nearby, using Syndra's caution against her to wrap around the forest line, beyond the periphery of her vision, and strike from plain sight where even if she saw him quickly enough, his superior agility would give him the final, decisive advantage.

"An assassin never reveals his secrets," Zed simply stated. "Those who learn soon perish afterwards."

"Then what will you do with me, O fearsome Master of Shadows?" Syndra raised her pitch in a mocking whimper.

A speck of snow had fallen on her cheek, and while Zed stared at her as if contemplating the question, he reactively brushed the intruding particle away with his finger. The gloved hand rested on her exposed skin for a second before Zed hastily drew it away. "I wasn't here with you," he decided, getting off from her and offering his hand to pull her up.

"Right, you were waiting for me to finish my little walk because you're going to help me pick out a gown for the-" Zed grabbed her arm, using his other hand to indicate for her to remain quiet before then pointing out a figure walking - no, gliding - in the distance.

Syndra made a point to know the other mages in the Institute, not because she necessarily wanted to socialize with them, but because each of them came from a specific discipline, and she wanted to make sure she correctly connected a person's identity to the type of magic they specialized in. The little girl, Annie, still had her beat in pyromancy, and her influence over accelerated particles did not have the long reach of Xerath, but Syndra knew eventually that she would overtake them all.

So even from a distance, Syndra recognized one of her most difficult case studies snooping around the area, ruining Syndra's otherwise ideal picture of a winter wonderland. Wherever he went, entropy and decadence usually followed, although not bringing the sensations of death that members of the Shadow Isles surrounded themselves with. No, this sense of destruction felt more primal, organization without form, the kind of disorder you might find in an abstract painting.

Not to mention the voidlings. Oh, for heaven's sake, why did the voidlings always have to be there?

Every other mage found themselves downright flabbergasted at Malzahar's arcane spells which seemed to defy all the standard laws of nature, Syndra included. She would find herself restricted from using her magic for a short amount of time by the projection of openings to the Void that interfered with the flow of mana within her (jamming her signals, as she sometimes put it); he would transform the ground into a zone of negative energy that didn't do anything on its own but proceeded to tear apart the essence of champions when combined with some other spells, not even necessarily his own, as she noticed it working in reaction to the giant colonnades of ice that appeared after Sejuani chucked her ice bola, or when the equally corrupted Ionian archer ensnared enemies in the tendrils of corruption; the hallucinations of the Void that he implanted in the minds of his enemies spread like a contagion that mobilized even faster in areas of massive carnage; and of course, the act of completely trapping someone in a prison with their own mind, leaving their body immobile and vulnerable to the plethora of other entropic effects that Malzahar himself would create, and if he did not dispose of someone then, a teammate on the rift would surely do the work for him.

All that being said, she still didn't understand why he had chosen to take his own little stroll in the middle of the biggest snow day at the Institute in several years. He had even chosen to dress for the occasion, donning a white ski cap and mask with a light blue fur coat. On closer inspection, however, Syndra found that Malzahar and his voidlings had not come out for a pleasant walk, but rushed along somewhere towards the edge of the woods. Looking at Zed, she saw he had the same curious expression; a couple of years exposure to the stoic ninja allowed her to read his feelings quite well despite wearing the mask constantly even in her presence.

Following the prophet's movement, they tailed him at a safe distance to the top of a narrow ridge, where Malzahar stood over what Syndra could only describe as a literal cesspool of chaotic Void… material. A swarm of Voidlings lay at the bottom of the ridge, running rampant across the area like bees at a honeycomb, destroying the little wildlife that had managed to survive through the winter months and growing in size each time it successfully converted life into Void-life. When a Voidling had run out of things to tear at, it ran at the nearest thing it could find, which often turned out to be another Voidling, and tried to sink its claws into it. Hundreds of Voidling brethren thus ended up slaughtering themselves, but for each one that died, a portal to the Void spawned nearby to periodically introduce more. Syndra would have thought the Prophet to enjoy such accelerated multiplication of his pets, but instead he desperately worked towards eliminating them. Most, if not all, of the spells that he typically used on the rift only served to augment his Voidlings' powers, so he had to resort to some more controlled magic more within the realm of traditional magic as Syndra had noted on Valoran. The Prophet had bound a large throng of rabid Voidlings biting at each other with invisible chains constructed by air, but only could temporarily halt the progress of one sector of the pit. The expansion of the swarm threatened to leak over into the upper part of land on which Zed and Syndra stood, which led them to run over to Malzahar.

"Explain to me what is this mass of pandemonium, prophet!" Syndra demanded as Zed had already taken it upon himself to cut open dozens of voidlings with his shurikens, the movements of his shadow and Zed himself flowing smoothly through the snow as he left a trail of Voidling remains behind him while he worked.

The seer looked up from one particularly demanding spell to notice her. "You must help me stop them. If they are permitted to continue growing, there will be nothing more to explain."

"That much I already got," Syndra said, crushing a pile of Voidlings under the mass of one of her dark spheres.

"As long as they are stopped from raising a hand against one another, the rapid expansion will cease… at least to a point where I can control it," Malzahar explained, incinerating another clump in a pillar of blue flame.

"And you want our help solely to trim your hedges?" Syndra asked incredulously, halfway in the process of flattening a large section with a purple block of energy.

Malzahar paid her little attention, continuing to spout flames at the swarm. "You would not understand now. As I said, completing the task comes first."

Between the two mages and Zed, they had eventually finished extermination, leaving a myriad of corpses lying scattered over the little ravine. After dutifully burning the remains in a large cremating fire - which, curiously, did not leave any ash - Malzahar turned to the two champions, with Syndra already holding her three dark spheres to the prophet's neck.

"I'd like to hear a proper explanation to this whole fiasco," Syndra demanded.

The prophet raised his hands in surrender, causing Syndra to ease up on the pressure, but only slightly. "It will make little sense, coming from one with aspirations such as myself," Malzahar confessed, " but the Voidlings had recently reached a state of alarming concern that I could not tolerate. The Cult of the Void may preach the complete conquest of Runeterra by the creatures of the Void, but that is a fanatical statement that only the blind cultists follow. As the true prophet and executor of the Void's will, I should enlighten you on the real direction such creatures like Kog'Maw wish to bring the world."

Syndra arched an eyebrow, while Zed seemed much more skeptical. "This sounds like nothing more than more of your empty ramblings, prophet."

"Turn a deaf ear to my words, then, ninja," Malzahar spat. "My mission is not to evangelize, but to foretell. And I can tell you that the creatures of the Void are starting to develop a sudden madness, a sense of urgency that they were all born with. Once it is triggered, they are supposed to use this defense mechanism to destroy all that they come into contact with."

"You call this defense?" Syndra asked, pointing over the ridge to where the gruesome battle had just taken place. "Suicidal tendencies from already psychotic killing machines?"

"It was not supposed to develop within the young ones lest the day of reckoning comes. So when I noticed that some of the Voidlings I have left running around had started going rabid, I had become concerned, and made sure I had gone into an isolated spot before I could confirm it," the prophet told them. "And as you can see… it has already begun."

"What has begun?" Syndra kept questioning him. "What is happening?"

"The scribes of Icathia had called it the Door of Ishtar. It is located in the alternate dimension that you know as the Void, and for as long as its inhabitants have known it has been sealed off. But the Icathians knew that one day, the door would swing open, and whatever beings came through that door would bring the end of the universe as we knew it. Their first destination would be the Void, and so its creatures had adapted their genetics to become highly unstable, highly destructive beings in order to take on these unknown invaders and stop them before they can get to the other dimensions," Malzahar told them. "The creatures of the Void are not invaders… they are gatekeepers."

* * *

 **A/N:** Finally I get to write Zed/Syndra, although I portray Zed as a typical stoic introvert and have Syndra making all of the moves. They're not quite a couple yet although Syndra acts the part and Zed resigned himself from thinking anyone else. With Syndra getting a new skin I feel like I should save up for her, she's pretty fun.

As usual this chapter's long length came from the most elaborate snowball fight of the century, and then spooky Void things. I always like to portray Malzahar in a "not really the bad guy" light and you might note this is similar to Trinity, where Kass and Malz kinda work together to stop the world from being destroyed from that Deeper Void stuff. i'm trying not to recycle plot ideas i swear


	12. A Choice of Honor

Fiora received many reminders throughout her line of work of people informing her how crucial a role she played, how critical she had to act when the pressing time for action came, and how studious she must conduct herself at all times, but what the nobles and the royal family did not debrief for her was the numbing dullness that her duty could slip into at times.

The portal that had showed up in the middle of one of the Institute's torchlight hallways, which the High Council had closed off under the grounds of 'interior redecoration,' glowed an off-white purple. Despite Fiora's vigilant investigation of the area all around the portal, and the volume of the wormhole itself, its status remained the same as it had five minutes ago, half an hour ago, and when she first walked in an hour ago. If the summoners that had joined her and the Ionian Captain of the Guard did not expressly state that the job they undertook might bring them into mortal peril, she might have faltered in keeping her attention up during her allotted time slot.

Attempting to scan the realm that it showed within it went about as successfully as trying to divine the contents of a foggy crystal ball from the perspective of a non-mystic. For all the emphasis put on the divination of upcoming events that the fortunetellers attributed to their spherical trinket, Fiora wondered what kind of scientific properties crystal balls held that led to them having such an opaque surface. She had always figured that the alleged seers had placed some kind of gaseous substance inside the sphere through some flap in the bottom, some cheap old parlour trick that sent the status of those who claimed the gift of prophecy further and further down the gaping chasm of the social ladder. This window to another dimension shared many of the dubious contents as a crystal ball, although if the prince trusted the information the High Councillor transmitted, which she in turn received from the self-proclaimed dual agents of death, then her confidence went in the direction Jarvan chose to place his faith.

"It is five o'clock," the summoner supervising them announced, and from the other side of the room, a weary Irelia unstretched her legs, the spirit blades floating at her side seemingly arising from a slumber to reanimate themselves. If even the Ionian's weapons could not pay attention the full duration of that monotonous hour that seemed to extend the flow of time like a rubber band, then they must have completed quite the tedious ordeal. "Thank you for your service, ladies. We will now bring the next set of guards in."

Irelia gave her an emotionless look as they turned around the corner and exited the corridor - whether it came from the wearisome stupor that they had inflicted upon themselves or from her natural tendency to look aloof when around people outside her small friend circle, Fiora couldn't tell and didn't exactly care. But on the way up the marble steps that would take them back into the main floor of the Institute's entrance building, the Will of the Blades chose to address her. "Having something so...foreign sitting in the middle of Institute property just worries me."

Fiora didn't reply, for the feeling felt so natural that she wondered why Irelia chose to express it in the first place.

"How can the summoners treat this like some kind of valuable treasure that you station guards around and casually rotate them through?" Irelia continued. "If it were me, I'd put everything at my disposal towards figuring out what it is and then trying to remove it. The nonchalant way the summoners that were there acted makes me think they're not taking this as seriously as they should."

"There is no need to act so hastily," Fiora said. "Prince Jarvan has said it is like the dangerous radioactive material that sometimes comes up during some of the larger-scale Zaunite chemical reactions. Obviously we don't need to approach it with the caution that the scientists use when dealing with potential biohazard products, but you cannot mistake their systematic observation for neglectfulness."

Irelia twitched a little at the mention of Zaunite chemicals, but her face retained its composure, at least until she started speaking again. "Aren't you even a little scared, Fiora? We've all been around Malzahar and Cho'Gath and all those other monsters of the Void and you didn't imagine what would've happened if something came out of it? And if Jarvan's informed, then surely you know that the Institute labeled it as the source of all the problems that have been happening lately? It's on a whole different level than your typical science experiment."

"It doesn't help in the least bit to worry about what might happen," Fiora shrugged, adjusting her wrist guard. She marveled at how easily it loosened as of recent. Perhaps she had grown thinner? "It can only hamper the execution of your duty to the best of your ability."

"Not like I already know that. That's why it's such an issue!" the dark-haired woman sighed as they came to the top of the staircase. "Well, I've got to be off and I'm sure you have your own duties. Reimetsugi, friend."

Before Fiora could reply the Ionian had already turned her back and headed towards the eastern parts of the Institute, so the duelist continued on her way. It seemed that even a person of great importance in another country's government had not received all the relevant information relating to recent events. Of course, Fiora herself still needed continual updates to keep at the same speed as those close to the High Council, but she figured that the meeting that Jarvan had called strictly to discuss with the aristocracy (not that any such exclusions impacted her in the least) meant that new developments had come around. Such summons had become more and more frequent since the cancelled match on the Summoner's Rift that she had taken place in, and with each meeting she noticed the exemplar carrying an invisible weight on his shoulders that steadily got heavier and heavier. Where an ordinary man would've eventually collapsed under the pressure of trying to balance the perilous events and the sorting out of Demacian attendance for the Grand Ball, Jarvan had taken his increasing responsibility quite well. His voice only grew louder, his authoritative aura more commanding, and his gestures more confident, little facets of personality that only someone as close to him as Fiora could pinpoint.

Jarvan had finally secured his own attendance to the ball since the Half-Dragon had consented to being his date, a little question mark on the map that Fiora had wondered for quite some time. As of today, the Demacians only had four days until the ball, and the prince had made his offer two days ago, dangerously close to risk making Shyvana think she would not attend. While Fiora didn't think Shyvana had any incentive to decline the invitation, judging by the close relations they already shared, the prince's naturally high status, and the lure of a prestigious event, it seemed Jarvan had not shared her confidence. The exemplar's relief at her acceptance seemed rather monumental, to the point where he had called Fiora up simply to discuss his elation at the dragoness' agreeance. She immediately told him that he had nothing to fear from the very beginning, and Jarvan had plunged into a lengthy laudatory monologue about how right Fiora was and that he should never have let his own misgivings slight the infallible judgment his friend had given him. Fiora had labeled it quite an experience, although she had repeatedly told the prince in the conversation that he had blown matters much too far out of proportion.

When she approached the meeting door Fiora found that discussion had already begun, the proud of the exemplar easily recognizable as he seemed to butt heads with one of his nobles on a matter of some contention. "We can't send her. Look, I'll explain everything in detail once the meeting begins," she heard Jarvan protest. Fiora did not normally show up to such meetings late, but the non-negotiable portal duty in addition to the slightly lengthy walk to the meeting room had set her back a few minutes. She opened the door quietly, making sure not to interrupt the ongoing flow of the room's atmosphere.

All eyes in the room had landed on her despite her attempts at a silent entrance, and Jarvan's face betrayed a look of concern as she took her customary seat at the front of the sole square table lying in the center of the room, facing the podium where the exemplar stood next to a blue hologram of the portal she had just watched not ten minutes ago. The small graphic rotated to show all of its angles, but Fiora knew from firsthand experience that they would not glean anything important from its appearance.

"Let's get right into it, then," Jarvan said, clearing his throat. "Yesterday evening, a mysterious wormhole appeared in one of the corridors of the Institute next to the old summoning chambers. Its appearance seems to have coincided with the Harbinger of Doom breaking loose from his confinement in summoning chamber seven. We can't say he exactly ran around rampant, considering that he simply manifested in the area and did not move from one spot unless he simply teleported elsewhere. Needless to say, two summoners were instantly struck dead at the scene and it would've turned into a much greater mess if not for the efforts of a few fellow champions, notably the Sheriff of Piltover, the Rise of the Thorns, and the Kindred."

"So what exactly does this portal do?" one of the nobles asked.

"And that's what I'm getting at. The Kindred claim that the entity that has caused this disruption of nexus energy from a few days back, as well as the impromptu release of Fiddlesticks, hails from the other side of this portal. It does not look particularly safe to simply walk through, of course, and we don't know how gravity and other natural laws will work in this alternate dimension, which is why the summoners have tightly regulated all activity near the portal, placing champions on guard periodically in case something comes from the other side or the portal does anything on its own. Fiora here has just come back from one of the patrols, in fact. Do you have anything to report?" the prince asked.

"There was nothing unusual to report. The portal remained dormant identical to the state in which we first found it," Fiora informed them.

"Then… there is no danger?" the noble from before questioned.

"We can't afford to leave this anomaly up while the Grand Ball goes on," Jarvan reminded them. "Not just because we could have something ruin what's supposed to be a professional social gathering, but because the Institute classifies this as a potential catastrophic threat. If we are to continue ensuring that the world lives on in harmony, as we swore to do when we joined the League of Legends, then we have to deal with the portal and hopefully remove it before the Grand Ball comes. After doing some research and experimentation, the Institute tells me that the best possible way to handle the situation… is to send someone into the portal."

The table immediately erupted into quick discussion about who they could send, about the possibility of the plan working, and all sorts of concerns. A couple of people had boasted that the Institute had turned solely to Demacia and its resources to save them from the predicament and people had already gone to speculation about how they could use such a bargaining chip to gain influence amongst the summoners, particularly over Noxus. Fiora knew how ridiculous the claim was. She had spent the past hour with Irelia and judging by her knowledge of the subject, although she did not receive as much as Fiora, the Institute had come to her as well. In fact, the Ionians had probably organized a meeting just like this one, which explained why Irelia had to go off and knew that Fiora herself had obligations to attend to.

The well of murmurs that steadily grew louder only stopped when Jarvan smacked the table with his hand, getting everyone's attention. "You will all be silent until I am done explaining. Now," he cleared his throat, "the High Council has sent this information to several other nations, and we are assigned in getting together to discuss who would be the best fit of ours to send to be what they would call a 'Diver.' They will be outfitted with a full body mech equipped with enough tanks of oxygen to supply them for a day and attached to a magical tether before they submerge into the portal. Once in the alternate dimension, they will explore in free space until either the mana for the tether runs out or we come across something that can explain the recent disturbances. Combat with extraplanar creatures is extremely likely."

"The choice seems rather obvious, Your Highness." Fiora noticed a finger point at her. "What better candidate to send than your own auxiliary guard, the Knight of One?"

Fiora hadn't thought the nobles would have given any her consideration, if she was honest with herself. When meetings went about in the day-to-day politics of Demacian government, the nobles would often praise Garen Crownguard's exploits, emphasizing the heroic qualities the captain of the Dauntless Vanguard constantly displayed, both on and off the Fields of Justice. With all the songs they sung, she would've guessed him already a hero of old going down in legend rather than simply a man in his mid-twenties primed to become the next general commander of the Demacian army. He had earned several medals by the court granting unto him praises and accolades for feats demanding nothing but the greatest courage and highest valor. The public already knew him as the greatest hero come to grace the modern times, so it would've made the most sense to select him as Demacia's most worthy champion out of a league of already proven champions. As for a head-to-head matchup, she considered herself every bit his equal, and she had even beaten him one-on-one in a few rather close duels when they clashed on the Fields of Justice. But the nobles would hardly value the small advantage she built up on him over the hundreds of military victories that Garen had led them to over Noxus before both nations joined the League. Why would they select her?

Jarvan seemed equally flabbergasted. "That's… quite the unorthodox choice, Duke Borchard. I thought we had quite the easy choice to make in Garen." A wave of assent came from the left side of the table.

"Your Highness, you did say that extraplanar combat would be one of the requirements for this job, correct?" the duke asked.

"It was very likely that the Diver would encounter creatures in the empty space. They can be quite extraordinary, as you already have observed from seeing the Void creatures like Kog'Maw at work," Jarvan clarified.

"In such a case, any of our champions well-versed in hand-to-hand combat will do well," Borchard continued. "The role of a Diver, as you call it, seems quite dangerous. What should happen if something goes wrong with the mech's systems? What would happen if the beasts out there are on a level completely different than anything we have experienced? What should happen if the tether is severed, whether by summoner error or the effect of the other dimension?"

Jarvan's face began to show worry. "Well, the summoners didn't say it was going to be a simple task. There was no way to set up a prototype Diver, where we could learn nothing without sending in humans, so the first Diver in would be the first living thing that would come from our world into that other one."

The duke's eyebrows narrowed. "So you are aware of all the factors that could go wrong, which, if it brought into the worst case scenario, would end up in us abandoning the Diver? The person that we send is likely sacrificing their life to solve this problem?"

Not a lot of things went past Fiora without her noticing, after spending years in the service perfecting her senses and preparing her body to respond to the slightest stimuli, all in the name of protecting Prince Jarvan Lightshield IV, so it only made sense that the only thing stopping her thoughts that constantly focused on the life and safety of the future king of Demacia was the fact that protecting him would cause her to throw herself in the way and put herself in jeopardy. Going into the unknown, fighting a battle without the comfort of a rapier in her hand and her customary greaves on her legs, without relying on the constants of earthly physics and the talent she had grown her whole life in the art of the blade, meant that she would have no better credentials than Garen Crownguard, than Irelia Lito, or likely any other champion that would take that seat in the Diver mech and jump into a completely unknown world to fight a battle against an enemy no one knew anything about. And whereas any other problem, any other breach of security, or threat against the prince, Fiora could stand in the way and drive off any danger, no matter how strong, with the point of her blade, she might as well have approached this issue with a broken hilt. The only thing that mattered then would be the resolve and the dedication she had for her nation and for the Institute of War. Fiora had to ask herself if she could shoulder the concerns and fears every individual involved in the issue, if she had the strength to make that choice and possibly sacrifice herself for it.

Jarvan seemed no less rattled, clinging tightly to the podium if his life depended on it. "I… I am fully aware of the danger that this position entails. All the heads of the nations knew, and this is why we are sending our greatest warriors to tackle this hidden enemy."

"Their performance is negligible!" Borchard protested. "You would sacrifice the pride and joy of Demacia, the face that our men and women and children look up to, the man that each Demacian soldier strives to become, the hero that each of us officials relies on to constantly do his job, to satiate the thirsts of these summoners who seem to have bitten off more than they can chew? This is the cost of dabbling in magic. This is the price of spending your whole life practicing the ritual of summoning, and look at the effects! Now they are calling to the countries of the world to fix their mess because these summoners and their damned nexus energy had some malfunction. If you want someone with spectacular performance, then pick Fiora Laurent for this mission. She'll be glad to go down as a martyr for the Demacian cause, that's why your family wanted you to have one specific guardsman. If we are going to risk throwing away one life, then you pick the one that is supposed to die for you in the first place, not the most loved warrior in the entire country!"

The duke's harsh words stunned the prince, as well as in everyone in attendance, and Fiora had to admit that he had gotten his intended effect. No matter what kind of angle Jarvan might have looked to counter that argument, Fiora knew that he had no adequate response to come back to that ugly truth. They had not wanted to select her as their champion; they already sang the praises of the people's champion, Garen Crownguard. She realized too late that the selection of a Diver did not glorify whoever rose to the post. It was an offering. Or at least, that was what the aristocrats intended for her to become, acting like they could not avoid the death of the Diver. The entire operation screamed danger and had no sense of reliability to it, it was true, but that didn't mean that she had come to the position of Prince Jarvan's Knight of One solely by incident. She had earned the right to stand by his side in the shadows, to protect him when people believed he had no one to rely on. Fiora could yet shame them for them nominating her in such a degrading way.

"You will not address her like that again," Jarvan finally replied. "Don't think that I don't understand what Garen means to Demacia, because he means that much to me as well. We grew up in the palace together, joined the military together, experienced our fair share of hardships, and fought on these new battlegrounds at the Institute as well. You can't just say that I am throwing him away, abandoning him to the designs of the summoners. He is my brother in every sense but the flesh, and I wouldn't have suggested him for the spot if I didn't think he would be more than willing to take up the burden. All the experiences that we've went through together have made it clear that he would be the best person for this job, and it is with a heavy conscience that I have to acknowledge this."

Jarvan tried to argue for her sake, Fiora she could tell, and he tried his best. But the nobles would have stronger arguments than him, and Borchard already had the backing of several other houses. Fiora had to acknowledge the resolve that Garen Crownguard had that the prince so highly spoke of; as brothers-in-arms, Garen would have no qualms putting his life on the line for the prince, and vice versa. And yet she, and not Garen, stood in silent observation while the prince argued with his aristocrats like usual, entrusted with the silence and complete confidence of keeping secrets of the most sacred matters that the Demacian crown handled. Fiora had proved herself in her abilities just as much as Garen did, and yet they made all these arguments in their efforts to exempt their beloved hero of war from such a concerning fate, defaulting to her although they did not understanding her own side of the story. With the responsibility of the prince's closest guard came the absolutely reliability of protection. Fiora would gladly lay her life down in order to shield the prince from danger, and would secure his well-being in a heartbeat even if it meant surrendering her fate to the winds of chance. But she would not tolerate ending up as the second choice for the nobles simply because they did not want to let go of their most prized possession. Fiora wanted them to understand that they should've chosen her because it would be the right decision to make, not because they feared making the wrong one.

"You have just told us how much you value Crownguard yourself, and yet you still place him on the chopping block?" another of the nobles accused him. "It is simply ludicrous for a man to let someone he considers a brother go to such an accursed fate. Your Highness, I urge you to reconsider, Crownguard's life is just too-"

"That is enough," Fiora interrupted, standing up. Taking her scabbard and unsheathing her prized rapier, the sword of her grandfather (when she had deemed her father's unworthy to use) decorated with a beautiful ruby hilt, she laid it on the table for all the nobility to see and bowed. "I accept. I will gladly serve as the Diver in the interests of Demacia - provided the prince sees me fit for the occasion."

Her statement had silenced basically every other person who had come to the meeting, but she no longer had to prove herself to them. If the prince continued to see Garen Crownguard as a better choice to protect the interests of the country than she, then she had failed in her aspirations as his true knight. While the commander certainly had proved his worth with his military career, he had become exactly what the nobles called him, a face for the rest of the country and its people to look up to. Fiora would serve as the true embodiment of chivalry, the unspoken, unnamed soldier who put her life down on the line to save the ideals of what made a real knight.

It seemed he still had some reservations. "Fiora… you don't have to do this…"

"With all due respect, my prince, you should choose your words carefully, or your lords and ladies might actually think you worry about my safety," she insisted, still keeping her head down. Her slight jab got a laugh out of a couple of them, although she had been quite serious about it. The prince should have no qualms sending her out to fulfill her duty.

"Well, if you're the one that's putting herself forth… er, at any rate, we still have to submit our own choice to the Institute and add her to the pool of other applicants. There are champions from Noxus, Freljord, Ionia, Piltover, and I hear even Bandle City was sent a summoner to demand a representative from them…" Jarvan seemed to have recovered his demeanor only when he stopped speaking about her own involvement in the issue.

"You must be blinding yourself if you think that any of these other nations holds a candle to our warriors, the brightest and bravest in the realm," one of the countesses spoke. "The yordles? It is out of mere formality, I would guess, and not out of serious consideration that the Institute would want to send one of those creatures into this portal."

Fiora believed that she had distinctly overlooked the fact that they had one of their own operate a fully functional mech of his own, and he would probably have made a better pilot than most of the human applicants simply because of his previous experience. She looked at most of the Bandle residents with disdain, but Rumble's bravado had earned him an exception.

"The Freljord has their fair share of mighty warriors, true, but they are the ones whose interests they wish to defend, for theirs is the kingdom that this Grand Ball is here to celebrate," the countess continued. "The High Council would not impose on them like this. There is not much of a pool to draw from the City of Progress, because most of them are inventors and explorers rather than born warriors. Ionia may be the only other region that can contend with our might. I assume that you already know that we should have no worries about Noxus interfering in these plans."

Her pride had created some flaws in her reasoning, although Fiora agreed fundamentally. Ionia did have equally willful warriors who could go toe to toe with either her or Garen Crownguard - she thought of Irelia at first, of course, but she would never underestimate the extreme lengths that the Kinkou could go to demonstrate their fidelity to the preservation of balance. Nor would Fiora overlook the almost mystical power that their swordsmen could summon not only from their blades, but from within themselves, and some of them, like Lee Sin, had already sacrificed so much from their lives to prove to the world that they had the iron will to make a difference. Of course, she always considered herself the superior in almost all of those cases, but she didn't consider it a case of arrogance or anything. How else would she prove her worthiness if she did not already adopt the mindset that she was the most worthy?

"Very well then, we shall submit our selection to the High Council and wait for them to make their decision before we discuss any further," Jarvan told them. Fiora could not help but frown at the juxtaposition of ideas when he drew out a cell phone and began sending a text message to the High Council, for it didn't feel right to relay such a tough choice through a superficial medium like electronic data.

As it turned out, the Institute did not ponder long after Jarvan informed them that Demacia had selected Fiora, for after a few minutes she heard the buzzing sound of the cell phone indicate that the High Council had answered back. The debate had taken quite a long time, and Fiora doubted that any of the other countries had such trouble in their nominations of a Diver. Now she had to wait and see if the summoners had also deemed her worthy.

The prince took a deep breath before addressing the nobles. "It looks like we're up. Fiora, you will be the Diver for the Institute and descend into the portal. High Councillor Kolminye requests your presence at the site immediately. Everyone is dismissed."

She caught sight of Jarvan signalling her to come to him while everyone got up and left, so she once again moved off to the side, ignoring the curious looks she received from some of the nobles as they sidled past her. Once the room had emptied, the prince walked over, his face finally cracking to show his high concern. He did not at all seem pleased with her actions.

"You didn't have to do that, you know?" Jarvan said incredulously. "I would've done everything in my power to have Garen go in your place, but with even you supporting the nobles' ridiculous idea…"

"Are you saying you do not think I am the correct fit for this job?" Fiora asked warily.

"No, no, not at all!" Jarvan exclaimed. "I just… I value you, and your post, and all you've done for me, and even so I cherish Garen just as much, if not even more, but people would have expected it for him. And should the mission have gone terribly wrong, we would have to tell them that Garen Crownguard died serving his country. As much as it would have pained me to lose a brother, he would not have wanted his position to go someone whose value lies in her remaining secret and only an asset that our government knew about."

"You would send him in my place although this was exactly what I was appointed to do." Fiora knew, from his struggles with the dragoness, that Jarvan was a man who struggled to let go. But he would've easily relinquished her than he would let go of Demacia's hopes and future, wouldn't he?

"His place is out there on the front lines, making sure that that Demacia walks into the storm fearless and proud, unafraid of death," Jarvan said quietly. "Your place is behind everyone, making sure that the ship, above all else, does not sink."

* * *

 **A/N:** 50,000 words here we are. (yeah I have like a thousand words in author's notes but most of that is about the story anyways, and if not for holidays I could've gotten a lot more. The problem here was that I wanted to make this chapter and the following one where Fiora actually goes into the portal one chapter but it would've been a lot shorter than usual and I'm glad I got to extend this to make it a lot more drawn-out, I thought I had actually nice dialogue in here. Only thing I'm concerned with is the very last sentence, I couldn't think of a better analogy.

I also stole from Code Geass and am not ashamed at all. Time to take a break from constant updating, might throw in a one-shot before I get back to this story (I'll finish it I swear).


	13. A Dive with Demons

Caitlyn had already begun regretting not preparing tea in the morning instead.

Removing the woolen mittens on her hands and setting her purchased coffee down on one of the benches in the hallway, Caitlyn shook out one last shiver before taking in the scene that greeted her and Zyra. Normally the Institute never experienced such strong winter weather with its central location in Valoran, but she had woken that morning to find a mild snowstorm pelting at her window.

The Institute had outfitted the humanoid mechanized suit of hextech which they found in the corridor with the portal with an arsenal of strange weaponry and unfamiliar magical properties, but Caitlyn had a feeling the white-wooled figure sitting atop the suit's shoulder didn't belong there.

"Are you certain that will work?" Lamb asked curiously to a summoner working on some last-minute wiring, applying electrical magic to the circuits in the suit's wrists. The man chose to not respond, probably on orders not to consort with emissaries of death unless absolutely necessary. Shrugging, the feminine figure gracefully hopped off the suit and headed off towards one end of the corridor, the black wisp of Wolf circling around her earnestly, its face twitching as if smelling the air hungrily.

Caitlyn could only describe the Kindred as a case of schizophrenia brought to full animation. For a couple of creatures that embodied the imminence of death, their synchronized behavior worked so well it bordered being downright comical. Finishing each other's sentences, asking questions to which the other already knew the answer, and acting perfectly in tandem seemed more like a gag out of a circus troupe, but the sheriff could see why they instilled such a feeling of terror in all the poor souls that they came across. A person who teetered on the threshold between life and death, their bodily functions struggling to hold on against the inevitable tides of oblivion waiting to sweep them away, would also question their state of mind at seeing the animalistic pair. And when they found themselves faced with the choice of succumbing to the beautiful yet fatal strike of Lamb's arrow, or the vicious and unyielding savagery of Wolf's teeth, Caitlyn would not fault a dead man for preferring the much more painful way out.

The Sheriff expected a large amount of personnel on hand to supervise the diving operation, as the High Council called it, and the cast included more than just than the thirty or forty summoners assembled in the narrow hallway. Quite a few of the League champions also came to attend: Caitlyn already knew Kayle would show up, but the other countries of Valoran also had representatives: the exemplar of Demacia, the Grand Noxian General's Hand, Shen of the Kinkou Triumvirate, Ionia's Grand Duchess, +Sarah Fortune for Bilgewater, the Swift Scout of Bandle City, and to her great distaste, the Machine Herald. If she considered herself Piltover's representative and Zyra the person to stand in for the Kumungu natives, then they had a member for every major region of the continent, with the exception of perhaps the most important corner of Valoran at the moment… the Freljord. The sheriff looked all over the room, but she could not find a trace of the white-haired archer or the helmeted barbarian. And we do all this for the sake of their kingdom. More and more Caitlyn believed that the oddities at the Institute had begun to revolve around the three sisters, as the Freljordians called them. The Frost Archer nor her lord consort had yet to physically encounter Caitlyn during the weeks leading up to Snowdown, and it felt strange to perform such thorough security measures for a pair of people that Caitlyn had not actually met with recently.

In fact, with the vast amount of equipment the summoners had carried out into the corridor, one might've thought the situation only involved the Diver. The robed summoners carried toolboxes in with them, and whether they carried regular machinery to perform regular maintenance on the Diver suit or arcane hextech devices to give the suit magical enhancers, Caitlyn did not know. She spotted one of them roll in a shelf with racks populated with gunblades, with some models that she recognized used by some of the higher ranking officers and herself and Vi when dealing with particularly delicate missions. It seemed that they had decided for the Diver to use such technology to defend themselves when taking the plunge into the wormhole.

"And what unlucky soul have they decided to put into that pile of metal?" Zyra asked. "I cannot imagine this being anything other than some kind of punishment."

"It's a dangerous mission, but the Institute can't just treat this like a potentially harmful experiment and use criminals sentenced to death as guinea pigs," Caitlyn told her. "The Diver who will undertake this operation has to be one of the League's best, most formidable champions. Whatever we might find down there, our selection has to be ready for anything."

As daunting the task would come off to the participant, Caitlyn found her job equally as vital for its success. The High Council had placed her in charge of directing the Diver to where they needed to go, giving her access to all the camera feeds installed in the mechanized suit so Caitlyn could enjoy a full 360 degree observation of the strange world the Diver would explore. She would guide them according to the energy readings that sensors placed on the suit would relay back to the main control panel of sorts in the corridor. Where higher readings showed, the Institute believed they would find life forms native to the other world, and if so, hopefully discover an answer to the problems recently plaguing them. The sheriff shuddered at the possibility of encountering non-temporal beings, extraterrestrial powers that seemed inclined to commit chaotic acts such as setting Fiddlesticks loose on the summoners that had imprisoned him.

The inclusion of magic made assembling a central control site on demand much easier, and she saw the improvised desk holding a wide panel of buttons and levers assembled towards one of the walls. The person who took a seat at the panel effectively had repsonsibility over the Diver's decisions, route, and ultimately their fate. Caitlyn tried not to think about the mission too much as she continued surveying. Within the wall itself hung a small monitor, which would give the various screens from the cameras within the mech suit.

The Diver themselves was not actually present in the room yet, having needed to undergo a private briefing of the mechanized fighting apparatus as well as the more specific guidelines of what exactly the Council intended to find. Amidst the quiet of her surroundings only broken by the constant tinkering of equipment, Caitlyn could hear the sound of several people approaching. She recognized High Councillor Kolminye as one, but the champion that accompanied her, who she presumed was the Diver, came as a shock.

Fiora Laurent, perhaps one of the most trademark fighters of the League precisely because her style revolved on her careful strategizing of what the opponent would do and adjusting her play to foil them, would probably have impaled herself on her own blade than enter combat in something so far from her traditional weapon. Caitlyn wouldn't blame her, for she never considered hextech or regular machinery as an actual means of combat and therefore detested technological warfare. The full body suit, which resembled Rumble's own mech than anything else, effectively took away the traits that the League had specifically recognized in her. If she thought about it more she realized that it probably didn't matter what kind of skills the champion selected to dive would have, which made the Institute's approach to the portal all the more perplexing.

Everything that the summoners had supplied, at least, had given Caitlyn the impression that they would fight with 'modern technology,' but she had only just noticed the giant blade that three summoners behind the High Councillor had carried, one at the hilt and two holding the edge itself covered by the scabbard. While the black scabbard hid most of the properties that Caitlyn might've looked for in such a weapon, she could tell that an artisan had not created the hilt like they did for most traditional swords. A mixture of titanium and steel seemed to make up the composition, and glowing light nodes all over the handle indicated that some kind of technology was present in it. Despite its rather modern look, Caitlyn understood that the duelist would prefer to wield a weapon similar to her usual blades rather than arm herself with some kind of firing device unfamiliar to her.

While Caitlyn continued to examine the strange weapon, Zyra voiced her opinion on the Diver now that she knew it. "Her? I suppose, it is not the greatest surprise, but something seems… off by this choice. She is not the type of person that would take such a place at the head of an operation."

The duelist's brown eyes didn't waver from their locked position on the Diver suit as Fiora made her way towards the portal under the scrutiny of all present. If she any semblance of doubt, fear, or hesitation on her mind, she didn't show it as she made each step with the bravery expected of someone whose very title proved that she could toe the line between life and death and walk away victorious when the odds counted for it. If she didn't have the strongest physical ability or the most intimidating posture, at least she still had the confidence to behave that way.

Kolminye handed the Demacian a metallic helmet with a semi-transparent magenta visor. "Your communications will come through here," Caitlyn overheard, "as well as the status of relevant resources - hybrid fuel, antiflux, and so on."

"I understand," came the emotionless reply.

"She seems rather eager to get on with it," Zyra muttered at the sheriff's side.

"Now that everyone required for this operation is present," Kolminye addressed the crowd, "let us commence the Dive."

Caitlyn understood the call as her cue to head towards the control panel, gently sitting down on the rickety chair. The plant sorceress settled alongside her, observing the assortment of inputs curiously. "If I hadn't known any better, I would've thought you were the one doing all the work on this mission."

The sheriff smiled grimly. "I won't need to touch most of these if everything goes according to plan. The most important control given to us is to start pulling in the tether which is attached to her. It can only go so far, and if Fiora wants to explore further in, she'll have to detach the connection so she can move freely." That was the most concerning part. If the Diver removed that connection, then they could do nothing to save her should anything dangerous show up and would have to rely on the duelist's own combat skills, most of which the clunky metallic suit would nullify.

"If she can successfully reattach the tether cord to the Diver suit, then we can pull her back up ," Caitlyn continued, "and that's why we're hoping she doesn't have to do much."

Turning to the Diver suit, they saw the Demacian don the helmet and climb up a ladder so she could insert herself into the metal, moving her new arms and legs experimentally as she attempted to acquaint herself with its nature.

"You will feel slower at first," Kolminye explained, "until you get used to the machine synchronizing with your body. Once the system has finished the calculations, however, you should be able to move about as if its limbs were your own."

Continuing her trial of the Dive suit, Fiora moved over to the large sword that the summoners had carried in and picked it up with her right hand, the material deceptively light for its size. A few of the people in robes gave her a large berth as she made a few experimental swings through the air. When she did speak, her voice had become distorted by the helmet, a digital fragment of her already robotic self.

"I'm ready," she stated, and Kolminye directed her towards the portal, where another team of summoners stood ready with the tether. From the very long coil sitting alongside the wall, which Caitlyn remembered would extend about one mile, they attached it to an outlet on the suit's back. Giving the affirmation that they had secured it, Kolminye walked forward to address the Diver one last time, placing a hand up on the cold metal exterior.

"We are counting on you to discover the secrets behind this matter," the High Councillor encouraged her, "but understand that this is not a succeed-at-all-costs mission. The sheriff will be supervising your progress, and if there is ever a time when Caitlyn or myself deems it too dangerous for you to continue going on, then you must defer to us. The delicacy of this operation does not permit any reckless egotistic impulses to derail the executive decisions of higher command."

The opaque visor prevented Caitlyn from viewing Fiora's facial expression, but she saw it move towards her, studying her a second, before nodding. "I understand."

Kolminye must have had some headstrong subordinates, for she seemed exasperated at Fiora's perfect obedience. "If I wanted a robot to carry out this mission, I'd have chosen one. No jokes? No heroic wisecracks like I would have expected?"

Silence from the person behind the helm. Caitlyn didn't blame her.

"You're impossible. Carry on," the grey-haired woman decided at last and moved to the side to let Fiora pass. Caitlyn had expected her to stop at the portal, perhaps waiting for one final set of instructions, or to contemplate the mission one last time, but the Diver suit had already disappeared into the wormhole, the tether quickly unraveling. Hurriedly she spun towards the monitor to prepare herself, turning on the display and finding that the cameras had so far continued working. Fiora could only see a light purple void around her on all sides, a barely changing landscape to guide her along. It didn't seem that the dimension had any sort of gravity to pull her down anywhere, and the sheriff noticed Fiora turn on the small rockets attached to the suit's ankles, firing a small burst in order to propel herself forward a little quicker.

Caitlyn reached for the headset lying on the panel and quickly fitted both ends to her ears. "Hello, Fiora?" she asked as she moved the microphone to her mouth. "Can you hear me?"

"I can you hear fine," the slightly accented voice responded after a short delay.

"Okay, good," the sheriff said, scanning the different views of the other world that the cameras inside the mech provided. Every one returned the same bland purple horizon, and she furrowed her brow as she tried to decipher what to make of such a barren existence. "Can you make out anything besides this… well, emptiness?"

"Nothing to report," Fiora replied flatly. "I assume that I must continue going forward, but without any ground beneath my feet I cannot tell how much distance I have covered."

"Ah, so she can say sentences longer than three words," Zyra joked at Caitlyn's side, but the sheriff turned away and looked at one of the numbers onscreen which steadily decreased with every passing moment.

"You haven't moved much," she informed the Demacian. "Only a few hundred yards, and not even one-third of the tether expended."

"Then I shall keep this direction," Fiora said. She certainly didn't have much interest in conversation, Caitlyn thought to herself.

The landscape continued its static existence as Caitlyn continually shifted her attention between the remaining length of the tether and the camera angles of the world within the portal, but as far as she could tell both kept being constants. Fiora had not chosen to slow or quicken her pace, and in return the empty space had not shown any object of interest in its vast domain. The monotonous travel of the Diver suit and the increasingly dull surroundings had begun to pacify Caitlyn from her earlier on-edge attitude. She kept up the strict ritual of monitoring the tether length and cameras, but nothing came of note until Fiora had alerted her attention, pulling her out of a lazily content state.

"I think I see something," she announced into Caitlyn's headset, and the rustling behind her indicated that Kolminye had been listening in to the communications.

"Where are you looking?" Caitlyn heard the High Councillor through the headset before she heard it in person. While she spoke, the sheriff could hear the robed form of Kolminye walking up behind her chair to look at the monitor.

"Slightly to my left," Fiora told them, and they turned the forward camera to eleven o'clock as both the sheriff and the summoner leaned in to look more closely. Caitlyn scanned the screen, moving her eyes left to right and down the image as if reading a book, but despite her best efforts, she saw nothing more there than she had when they had first started observing. Hearing the frustration behind her indicated that Kolminye hadn't any better luck.

"Focus the resolution in that direction," Kolminye suggested, and Caitlyn pressed a switch that temporarily turned off the cameras looking at other angles in order to feed more power into the specific camera. The image improved, and Caitlyn could see slight differences in the background and the strange colors within the portal, but nothing enough to warrant bringing up their attention.

"Fiora, what did it look like?" Caitlyn asked. "We don't seem to be able to see it from here."

They could see the image shake slightly as Fiora readjusted her position. "It is too faint to make out from here, just a black speck. I believe I can make it out better if I come closer."

Caitlyn didn't see the problem in doing so until she realized that the Diver suit had come to the end of its tether. She could only advance if they had the tether detached, and the High Council had emphasized that they would only do so if the situation required for it. "Fiora, I don't think that's…"

"Let her go," Kolminye interrupted. "You are only to try to get as close to this object as needed to figure out its identity. Coming into combat range is by no means advisable."

"Very well," Fiora agreed, and Kolminye gave the signal to release the tether. The summoners controlling the tether pressed a switch, and over the headset Caitlyn could hear a faint clicking as the tether broke off the Diver suit and freed Fiora of its restraint. Immediately the duelist kicked off again with the rockets at the mech's legs and headed in the direction where she had indicated the object lay. Before long the two of them could also make out a dark shadow in the distance, but nothing more than that. It turned out that they had a slight delay between Fiora's actual interactions with her environment (or lack of it) compared to the video feed that they received, and so when Fiora showed recognition of the mysterious figure, Caitlyn and Kolminye still had an undistinguishable figure on their screens.

"I know what it is!" she had exclaimed, much too excitedly than Caitlyn had ever seen her, but a second later she uttered an expression of confusion.

"What did you see?" Kolminye asked.

"I…" Fiora had lost her excitement and couldn't even return to her usual state of stoicism. A large rumbling came over the headset, and at first Caitlyn though something had messed up in the suit's interior, but Fiora had not said anything about it. When the tremor had finished, her voice came up again. "I will assume you heard that."

"It was difficult not to," the sheriff replied.

"I can only describe that as a giant glacier materializing behind where I saw this figure," Fiora explained, having levelled out her voice back to her baseline. "When I looked closer to figure out their identity, the glacier's sudden appearance threw me off, and when I looked back, they had disappeared… into it."

Both of them knew Fiora to be one of the more level-headed champions in the League, else they wouldn't have selected her for such a serious task like this, but the chain of events that she spoke of seemed on the far end of ludicrous. When the cameras had caught back up to the live sequence of events, however, they witnessed her testimony first hand. True enough, the giant sheet of ice had simply appeared out of nowhere. The small figure at its base had seemed to become absorbed within the mass, leaving no trace of its presence as the giant glacier completely encase it.

When they had finished looking on in amazement and utter confusion, they heard Fiora's voice come through once again. "I would wager that was the same Ice Witch that the Institute has been looking for since the match last week."

"Well… the appearance of this glacier certainly supports this theory," Kolminye said, "but there is no way to prove it unless you can get close enough to receive visual confirmation, which didn't happen. Perhaps this mysterious person is still somewhere around the glacier?"

"I can check the whole thing, if you would like," the duelist offered, but before either could give a response, a guttural roar rang out from Fiora's end of the communication system as she cried out in surprise. Due to the delayed screen, Caitlyn and Kolminye couldn't make out what had happened, but the continued sounds of struggles, combined with the wild swinging of her sword, indicated that she had encountered some kind of hostile being and engaged in combat.

"Fiora!" Kolminye shouted into her headset. "What's going on?"

More sounds of scuffling, between which Fiora tried to eke out a couple of words. "I… cannot tell," she choked, crying out after a loud thumping sound on the Diver suit. "I cannot see anything!"

They held their breath in anticipation as they waited for the monitor to catch up to the story that the audio told them; eventually it reached the point and they could see Fiora clearly thrown aside. From their vantage point, despite the constant shaking of the camera, they could make out her assailant: a purple-skinned four-legged beast that had a maw of razor-sharp teeth. Hearing the audio so far off the visual disturbed Caitlyn, however, watching scenes that only happened ten seconds or so after she heard them, filling the pieces to an unsolved puzzle all too late.

"It's a giant canine beast!" Kolminye exclaimed. "Can you not see it?"

"There is nothing!" Fiora insisted, drawing a shriek out of the creature with her sword. When the video feed came up, Caitlyn had to admit she was amazed that she could make such a precise strike at its cheek despite fighting her adversary virtually blind. But as she continued to listen to the audio, it seemed like the beast had begun to get the better of the swordswoman, if her grunts and cries of pain were any indication. Every second that she watched the delayed fight go on the monitor, the more and more Caitlyn started to believe that Fiora could not take on the beast, especially one she could not see. "Councillor Kolminye, do you think we should-"

"Do not worry!" Fiora interrupted, and her past self on the video had made another blow to the beast's midsection. "I can handle this!"

The High Councillor remained speechless, her eyes fixated to the late displaying monitor as if in a trance. Caitlyn wondered what had gotten her into such a spell when she finally responded. "Do what you must, Fiora, but you must restrain that monster!" she demanded. Underneath her hood, Caitlyn could see a bizarre fury in her eyes that normally did not come over the mild-mannered senior summoner.

"I will," the duelist promised, but the sounds coming from her struggle did not seem promising. The beast howled at the Diver suit with a berserk rage, a foreleg slamming down on to the helm repeatedly as Fiora attempted, mostly unsuccessfully, to outmaneuver it in the imperfect grace of a machine. No matter how much it could've calibrated to her motions, it would not beat the integrity that her own body could provide her. Eventually Caitlyn had just stopped paying attention to the video feed and concentrated on the battle happening in the present time. One particularly strong blow seemed to have taken the wind out of Fiora, and she could hear her struggle for air while still trying to pilot the Diver suit.

"Fiora," Caitlyn spoke up in a low, but firm voice. "Get to the tether. Now."

It seemed she had wasted all her strength in mustering up stubborn defiance. "I can still… AHH!"

Her cry of anguish woke Kolminye up from her trance, and the summoner shook her head in surprise. "Fiora!" she cried out. Turning to the summoners manning the tether, she decided to unleash her irritation on them instead. "Well, you heard the sheriff! Start preparing the tether. Override her system if you have to!"

"This isn't something you can afford to gamble with, Fiora," Caitlyn continued arguing with her, but if her words even got through, then she wasn't paying them much attention considering her much more pressing problem. Their battle went through a few more hits, with the Diver suit receiving the worse end of things, but the duelist still did not show any signs of relenting. Only when the summoners in charge of the suit's defense mechanisms inform them of the manual override did the sounds coming through Caitlyn's headset begin to die down as the rockets in the legs begin to propel themselves back to the tether.

"What…?" Fiora managed to ask before the purple beast had jumped back onto her. They had almost reached the tether, and judging by her desperate behavior and the savagery of the entity assaulting her, they wouldn't have the luxury of attaching it properly to her back.

"Grab onto the tether, Fiora!" Caitlyn commanded when it came into range.

"I… cannot!" Fiora told them through another cry of pain. "The mutt has my arm!"

Caitlyn had to sit through ten seconds of struggling and gnawing and grinding of teeth before she could verify the damage on the screen itself, and sure enough, it had sunk its canines into her sword arm. Rather than dropping it, however, she had managed to fumble it somehow into her left hand and had tried beating the monster away from her. Caitlyn looked at possible ways to attach the tether, but none of them seemed reliable at all save for the attachment to the proper slot or a manual hold. With the beast putting her right arm out of commission, that left them only one choice.

"Drop the sword, then!" she ordered, getting out of her seat and finding herself watching the monitor helplessly once again.

"What? I… never!" Fiora protested, still unsuccessfully swinging the sword at the beast, which did not prove easy considering how she had to avoid cutting off her own arm in the process.

"You don't have a choice!" the sheriff insisted, nearly shouting into the microphone, and it required Fiora to muster up all her humility and resign herself to letting go of her pride just as she let the sword fall to the abyss and grab onto the tether, the beast still firmly latched onto her arm.

"You have to hurry, then!" Fiora told them, and at a frantic signal from Kolminye, the tether workers began reeling the Diver suit in, enhancing their speed with the use of electrical magic to rotate the pulley quicker.

"Hold on tight, Fiora," Caitlyn instructed her, her eyes now solely on the tether length, a number that couldn't reach zero quick enough. The duelist grunted in response, and as the copper wire continued retracting, a question came up that no one had seemed to take into account. What would become of the beast tearing at Fiora's arm?

"She's here!" one of the summoners announced, and the Diver suit flew out of the portal, the purple beast slightly larger than it still attached to her. They collided with the wall at the other end of the hallway due to their high velocity coming from the portal and fell to the ground in a mess of metal and corrupted skin - or at least what Caitlyn could make out of its texture. Zyra had already sprung into action and sent forth a pair of vines to wrap around the beast's legs, but despite the strength of her magic and the thorns tearing into its skin, the mongrel refused to let go of its catch.

The summoners had surrounded them in a half-circle in an attempt to help, but Fiora and the beast had ended up so intertwined that a magic spell such as fire or lightning would have too great of an area of effect that it might end up injuring the duelist as well. Reaching for her rifle leaning up against the control panel, Caitlyn raised up the one weapon in the room that could fit the job. "Get out of the way," she instructed the summoners, who began to scatter before they realized what she intended to do.

"Are you sure about this?" Kolminye at her side asked as they watched the struggle on the floor continue, Fiora writhing in agony as she could do nothing without a weapon but endure the continual tearing at her arm, no matter how much metal encased it.

"Fiora! Turn the helm away!" Caitlyn ordered, crouching onto the ground to get a clear shot at what she best guessed to be the beast's head. Fiora did not bother even turning in her direction, but it seemed that she understood the sniper's intent, and tried to position herself in a way to place the beast between herself and Caitlyn. It all came down to her shot.

She lined up the crosshairs, deciding on a spot behind one of its oversized ears, and waited for the right moment to make her strike.

The beast shifted, slightly rotating towards her in an attempt to get a better angle at the damaged mech.

Caitlyn pulled the trigger.

The demonspawn recoiled at impact, its jaw slackening enough for the summoners to separate them using a powerful gust of wind magic. Fiora hurriedly crawled away, leaving the beast the sole victim of an arcane barrage of fire and lightning. Its body convulsed wildly as the power of nearly a million volts shocked it, and when Kolminye raised her hand to give the signal to stop, its fallen carcass left little to examine, despite its already twisted form.

The exemplar made his move first, running towards the cracked helm and looking for anyway to see inside the suit and see Fiora's fate for himself. It opened shortly after, and Caitlyn spotted a heavily bruised Fiora, with a nasty wound on her forehead releasing a streak of blood down around her eye and off her cheek. Jarvan searched for something to wipe it away - finding nothing, he headed over to the nearest bench and seized a grimy towel, carefully putting it to the duelist's marred face and doing his best to clean it of her injuries.

"You had to try be a hero, didn't you," Caitlyn hear Jarvan softly chastise her. "I should have never let you go through with this…"

"I am not a child to be kept behind the skirts of her mother, Your Highness," Fiora spoke in a weak voice.

"Get her out of the suit," Kolminye ordered, and another team of summoners came to figure out the best way to remove her from the mech. They had decided that they would simply disassemble it while she sat in it, and with a few twists aided by summoning magic, they had removed the armor plates covering her body. Once they had freed her right arm, Caitlyn couldn't help but gasp in horror.

Her formerly blue sleeve had turned a dark purple, completely covered in blood coming from the serrated teeth wounds all over her arm. The exemplar shouted for bandages, and a medical team came rushing in at once to examine the damage, doing their best to stop the flow of blood. With each wrap around her arm Fiora winced in pain, her mouth emanating a few red drops itself from biting her tongue to keep her screams in.

A summoner who appeared to head the medical team looked closer at her upper arm at some details Caitlyn could not quite make out, but when he rushed over to her and Kolminye she knew he could not have come with good news.

"There's a huge tear in the lower part of her arm, and her bone seems almost completely shattered," he informed them. "There's no way she'll be able to use that again, even with the strongest of healing spells or technology. And considering that we don't know the nature of the monster that gave her such a wound…"

A cry came forth, not from Fiora, but from one of the summoners still disassembling her suit. "H-her arm!"

A dark purple smoke had begun to rise from the tear in the duelist's arm, and through the white bandages, they could see that her skin had begun to take on the color of the smoke, The corruption expanded down from the wound towards her fingers, and it seemed that her arm expanded in size, threatening to break the bandages keeping her arm under wraps. Fiora could do nothing but look on in horror as the beast's mark continued to infiltrate her body, slowly moving towards what appeared to be total corruption. The screaming soon came after.

"Stop it!" she demanded, almost pleading, and the summoners jumped into action once again.

"Get her to the emergency room this instant!" Caitlyn could hear Kolminye command over the throng of summoners mobilizing.

"It's not stopping!" Fiora exclaimed, her voice cracking as her composure lost her. "Do what you have to do, cut it off if you must, but stop this wretched arm from getting to me!" she screamed.

The Machine Herald, who had sat in silence up to this point, suddenly volunteered to lend his aid. "Give the girl to me," Viktor offered in his robotic voice. "Zaun has the most experience in dealing with android amputation."

Jarvan looked back at him with disgust. "I will never give her up to you," he swore, "no matter if she has to give up all her limbs to stay human. I will not let her succumb to the will of your machines."

"She's going to succumb to blood loss if you all just keep standing there arguing!" Kolminye raised her voice above everyone as they tried to enter the dispute, and her summoners quickly threw the duelist onto a stretcher before heading towards the emergency room.

Caitlyn had begun to follow in their wake, but a thorny finger lightly tugged at her arm.

"We've done our part," Zyra told her. "She belongs to them now."

* * *

 **A/N:** this was supposed to be 3.5k words. enough said.

it was getting quite difficult to get back into the writing swing of things but my habit for writing a bunch of words for the chapter one day will never die.


	14. A Sign of Frost

Even before the first snowflakes had landed on the ironwood roofs of the Institute's towers, before the winds of winter had awoken from their restless slumber to envelop the world once more in their blistering gusts, Ashe knew. The mark of the Iceborn thrashed under her skin, a chilling brand that constantly reminded her of the cross she bore as she dealt with her ever-growing responsibilities: first as the newest incarnation of the Frost Archer, then as the leader and spokeswoman of the Avarosan, and finally as the Queen of the Freljord, a title finally actualized and one as real as the scars herself and her people bore to claim it.

Ashe soon found that her work had only just begun after her ascent to the throne. Vultures far more deadly than the ones who scoured the frozen battlefields in the north to pick off those lying in the tundra lurked in every corner of Valoran, velvet-tongued harpies that stood in the shadows of every pillar in the palaces of the great city-states. Despite the Lightshields' sworn promise to support the fledgling nation through its stabilization period and early growth, Ashe knew the disapproving whispers that spread through several less factions in Demacia, claims that the fair-skinned princess had only won her kingdom riding on the coattails of the gargantuan efforts of the army of barbarian warriors that hailed from the Fyrone Flats. The Noxian noblemen held no better opinions.

A nation whose culture shunned the cowardly nature of informants did not have many who claimed a profession in intelligence, but Ashe had fared pretty well relying on a few select individuals to bring her sensitive information. One of them had informed her that they had an interesting report to deliver to her this very evening, and so she had made sure to remain in her quarters so she could be present when her caller came.

She heard the metallic rustling of the door handle unlocking, the slab of wood moving forward as the bare-shouldered form of her lord husband hustled inside, carelessly tossing his broadsword at the wall and making long strides at such speeds that if Ashe hadn't known better, she might've thought that he intended to overturn the coffee table at which she sat. But Tryndamere had quelled his short fuse as quickly as it had begun to run and settled for grumpily crashing into the leather sofa between the door and the coffee table, groaning as he leaned his head back against the pillow cushions.

"I guess your match didn't go so well," the queen greeted him, her eyes kept on the electronic board in front of her. Tryndamere had scoffed at Ashe when she came back one day with one of the Piltover products in tow along with the blonde-haired explorer who had volunteered to explain the technology to her, but Ashe had understood the usefulness that could come with learning how to wisen up to the inventions of other nations. The advanced communication system that they had called "e-mail" was quite a few rungs up the ladder from their traditional letter writing, allowing the queen to disperse issues to the numerous vassals that had accompanied the royal couple to the Institute. In addition to the array of domestic issues that always needed addressing, the archer had found herself much busier as of late dealing with preparations for the upcoming Grand Ball, where the summoners had designated her and Tryndamere as special guests, and from one of her more savvy sources, the ominous threat of the Ice Witch making moves behind the shadows beyond the horizon.

"The other champions were the least of my worries," the barbarian king grumbled as he straightened up from his slouched position. "It was one of the few occasions that I was able to get the upper hand on that damned orange ball of fur, but it all blew up in the air since the match decided to drag on longer than a pack mule with two broken legs."

"What happened?" Ashe asked, finally switching her gaze to her husband. True, Tryndamere wasn't the most affectionate of partners, but even during the first few uncomfortable weeks since they had met, he rarely refused to make eye contact with her for long. His eyes continued to bore into the apartment wall with a somewhat detached intensity. Ashe stood up, deciding that if he wouldn't make the effort to come to her when he arrived, she would have to bring herself to him.

She brushed a pale hand over his shoulder, the unannounced contact causing him to stir slightly. "It takes quite a lot to bother you, not something I would've expected out of a summoners' match."

Tryndamere decided not to reject her contact, remaining in silent thought for a few moments. "It feels childish to get so concerned over a simulation, but there's no other explanation for it." He sighed, rolling his shoulders and taking a deep breath in what Ashe knew as rituals for a very weighty story. "Forty minutes or so into the match - my summoner's count, not mine - both teams had finally decided to turn our attention to the pit of Nashor. And we hid in the thickets for what felt like hours, constantly adjusting positions, scouting the perimeter for unseen flanks, and slowly pushing them back. Somewhere along the way one of the summoners had the bright idea to simply start attacking the Baron." Her husband crinkled his nose.

"Your team would have had the advantage in taking it down with your power," Ashe pointed out quietly, speaking with the tone of a tactician rather than a flatterer.

"Enraged or not, I still understand that it is a risky proposition." For the first time since he entered the room, his opal eyes met hers, oversized irises that threatened to swallow up his pupils presenting the demonic look which naturally repelled many away from him. "But today it seemed like a much tougher beast. Even taking into account the ranged magic that our enemies sometimes threw at us, we suffered a far greater amount of damage than expected. The acid that it belched from its maw did more than just tear through my armor. It angered the river in which we fought, making it a boiling cauldron that seared both my team and the enemy. The Baron was struggling against us with such a fury that we had never seen before, but neither of us was willing to take our losses and retreat."

"And the summoners did not notice the burning river, or anything like that?"

"If they have a hand in it, they did their best to conceal it," he told her. "Eventually the enemy team had took their chance to fully commit towards fighting us, and the outcome was nothing short of catastrophic. There are many times that I curse the gift that the Darkin had bestowed upon me, and this was no exception. The clockwork girl on the other team was completely smashed by a few blows from the Monkey King after the corrupting acid went through her circuits, and I endured the screams of agony coming from my own marksman when the Pridestalker jumped onto her from the shadows. Normally Rengar puts a quick end to your life, but that chaos decided it would not be so easy. The acid rain had prevented him from making the one clean cut. Her struggle was prolonged and her life held in place only so she could continue facing the full force of torment in that battle while Rengar did his best to finish her. I know the hunter well, and he would never lose his determination to finish a kill, but his stubbornness brought out the worst of us. Nashor's appendages slammed into champions all around me, and I was forced to bear it all. And the rage kept me alive for an excruciating five seconds before I finally received release from the last few embers of Brand's fire."

The barbarian king shook off the warmth of Ashe's hand as he moved towards the other end of the sofa. "It was like fighting a real war all over again."

A few sharp knocks on their door drowned out Ashe's response, propelling Tryndamere out of his bloody recollection. "Are you expecting someone?" His voice had somewhat returned to normal.

Her informant had finally arrived, Ashe gathered. "Yes - don't worry, it's a friend," she assured him, seeing his raised eyebrows. The queen strode towards the door, checking through the peephole to confirm her visitor's identity before opening it. A flapping of feathers and a golden, two-pronged helmet adorning a tomboyish face greeted the archer, who returned the smile the scout gave the Freljord rulers as she took a wide step into the room.

"Quinn?" Tryndamere got up from the sofa, dusting his trousers off. He looked between the Demacian and his wife. "You know, if you had business with Ashe, you could've come with me straight from the match."

"Oh no, I couldn't do that," the ranger smirked, to both Ashe and Tryndamere's confusion. "Walking alone with a royal to their quarters at this hour? I wouldn't want to invite rumors of a scandal."

Ashe rolled her eyes, but couldn't hold back a smile; she stole a look at her husband, who seemed rather mortified at Quinn's implication rather than enraged, a rare moment of indecisiveness that Ashe made sure to remember. He had done a marvelous job so far in portraying that their marriage created an alliance of equals, but even so Ashe naturally felt like the one making sure that her steps matched. Moments where he showed deference to her could never quite come often enough.

"What are you really here for?" Tryndamere managed when he realized that his wife had taken Quinn's remark as a joke.

The scout's face immediately grew serious. "Right. The queen asked me to do some snooping around to see what the summoners are up to. Ever since the preparations got serious for the Grand Ball, she noticed that they were acting really odd, always avoiding questions about their progress and so on. I mean, I'm sure she's already told you."

Ashe saw him nod in recognition. While she did share her uncertain feelings to Tryndamere, he hadn't taken as much interest in the affairs of the summoners as she did. He turned to her. "You never told me you asked one of the other champions to help! I thought you would select someone from our personal staff."

"I think Quinn's a bit more experienced and skilled in the art of reconnaissance than our own professionals who are hardly more than boys," Ashe argued.

The warrior scratched his head at the fact, realizing just how deprived of personnel they had ended up. "Of course, but that doesn't mean Rickard and Stenson aren't good at what they do…"

"Do you not trust her?" Ashe shot at him.

Quinn didn't seem too concerned about potential trust issues, although Valor set his gaze on him so intently that Tryndamere had trouble looking at the duo. He examined them for a second before turning back to Ashe. "The Demacians have generally been helpful to us, I admit."

"And Quinn has personally been up to the Freljord to meet with us and investigate the rumours a few years ago about Lissandra," Ashe explained. "She's already risked her life out there more than once discovering the truth for our sake, so I think you can rest easy knowing her good intentions."

"Very well, then," her husband conceded.

Quinn shifted her weight from one side to another. "Anyways, I'm pretty sure the summoners have been messing around with things that are evidently too sensitive for even champions to know. You know that one hallway that was closed off because of some 'maintenance' problems? The one near the summoning chambers with a bunch of guys in hoods gatekeeping so that only 'authorized personnel' are allowed in?"

Ashe nodded.

"That's not exactly true, as you might've guessed," Quinn revealed with a smirk, leaning against the apartment wall with her arms crossed. "There's this particular summoner, name's Collins, who I see go to do work in that restricted area at around the same hour every day. Now when he goes to perform real maintenance work at sites, he'll bring something rudimentary like a hextech wrench and blowtorch. But yesterday I caught him out of routine lugging a lot more firepower along with him. A hextech gunblade and a Zaun-Augmented Bio Assault Rifle? There's no reason to carry about those weapons unless you needed them to do some serious damage."

"Then the High Council is undertaking a very serious secretive program," Ashe surmised. "And yet I thought they had their hands full preparing for the Ball. They had told Tryndamere and me that they would do all they could to ensure that it went smoothly to inaugurate our nation. Are they brushing us off to the side for some other designs?"

"Whatever it is, there's something that needs containing in those roped-off corridors," Quinn said. "You don't need to bring out that much precaution for an extended period of time if you're just going to shoot it to death or something. The weaponry Collins was carrying around is being used to keep something in check."

"It's probably just one of those fiendish Void creatures," Tryndamere offered, but Quinn shook her head.

"The champions of the Void are kept in a different place. If anything, this location is around the area where Fiddlesticks is, but as far as I've known he hasn't acted up and tried to escape that summoning chamber. The scarecrow's more content with just standing in his little dark corner and killing anyone who bothers him," the ranger commented nonchalantly.

While Ashe continued to search her mind for other possibilities, Quinn continued. "This isn't all, though. Apparently some of us are cleared to go into that area, because out of all people, I spotted Teemo waddling his way over there. At first I chalked it to the summoners not noticing him, but then I see the Eye of Twilight casually stroll through with no concern for hiding his presence."

Quinn put a hand into one of her pockets to pull something out - Ashe couldn't get a good look at that distance, but it looked like a gum wrapper - and threw its contents in her mouth after unwrapping it, chewing it every so often. Tryndamere began to fume, thinking her gesture to be some kind of disrespect, but Ashe gave him an accepting look and he calmed down ever so slightly. She never wanted her friends to think they had to stand on ceremony with her. Quinn went on. "Come to think of it, Shen's probably the least careful of the four ninjas snooping around. For all intensive purposes he's the leader of the Triumvirate, and I always had this view that someone in such a position would be some kind of dark mysterious shinobi, but he's more like a security protection robot. Whenever you're in trouble, he just appears out of nowhere and does his best to be a big thorn in their side so that you end up being okay in the end. Point is, certain champions are allowed access in there for some reason, and if they had somehow missed Teemo, then they cleared Shen in because they felt they needed his help. The Kinkou are all about restoring balance, so there's something down there that probably fell out of equilibrium."

While Ashe scoured her mind for other possibliities, Quinn continued. "So this doesn't sound like an ambitious research project or some crazy summoning experiment. They have to be taking some kind of protective measures, which falls into line with keeping the Grand Ball nice and cozy for you two." She flashed a smile. "I'm sure it'll turn out great. Can't wait!"

"Oh? Last time we talked, you were complaining to me that you didn't have a date. Something about the prince forgetting to pair you up with one of the other Demacians…"

"Well, I managed to solve both of my problems at once when I was out investigating. I was actually going to bring him up after this, since he has some access to some extra information that I can't really get to myself," Quinn explained before averting her gaze for a second. "But the only reason why he shared it with me was because I agreed to be his date for the ball in the first place. Funny story, huh?"

"That's rather superficial, don't you think?" Ashe was never one to get involved with the romantic escapades of her female friends. An unmarried version of her might have found appeal in the prospect of playing matchmaker, but she found herself much more grounded in her thoughts when she considered her marriage to Tryndamere, often taking the more moderate stance out of the majority of the female champions when they gathered together to discuss their lives and what not.

"Hey, it's strictly business," Quinn shrugged. "And he's cute enough, so it'll work out. Like I was saying though, I told him to bring his intel to you in person, if you two had any questions that you wanted to personally ask him. So if you're interested in throwing another person into the mix, I can send Valor out the door and find him in a couple of minutes."

Ashe shared a look of consideration with her husband briefly before she spoke, moving towards the door and opening it. "Well, I certainly don't mind knowing more about whatever the summoners are hiding from us. Go ahead and let Valor out. As long as your friend can knock, it'll be alright. Who are they, anyways? If they're going to be your date, you might as well tell us their name."

The blue eagle gave a sharp chirp of affirmation before speeding off down the walkways and towards the dormitory section of the Institute's housing quarters. While most champions elected to reside in the university-style housing with only narrow corridors separating the rooms, Ashe and Tryndamere had agreed that they preferred living quarters with more privacy, and had selected a small one-floor apartment, located on a grassy plain a short distance away from the rest of the rooms that the other Freljord champions had. Only Nunu lived in a special apartment like the royals, but his situation came out of necessity rather than preference, for his yeti, Willump, required more space than a simple dorm room.

True to Quinn's word, a couple of minutes later they heard soft knocking at the door and a few scratching noises that Quinn attributed to Valor's talons. The archer instinctively opened the door without looking to let Valor back in, and only when she found herself face-to-face with the wide-brimmed cowboy hat and long brown hair of Twisted Fate.

"Pleasure's mine," the Card Master greeted her, flashing a gilded smile at a fairly stunned Ashe and not waiting for an invitation to enter the room. Quinn gave a half-hearted wave towards him as he sauntered in, while Valor seemed to have trouble not squawking at him.

"Would it kill ya to remove that helmet every once in a while?" Fate asked Quinn. "That headgear's only getting in the way of your beautiful purple locks."

Quinn nervously raised a hand to scratch the back of her neck as she tried to laugh off his compliments. "Heh… right. Your pickup lines can wait till the ball itself, no sooner. I agreed to be your date, not to be the object of your subpar flirting."

Fate looked a bit shaken up. "Don't you think that's a bit harsh for a-"

"You know I won't be wearing this to the Grand Ball, so I think you can afford to keep it professional until then," she suggested. She raised her finger in a silencing gesture when he tried to response. "Nope. You agreed to come here to spill what you know to the rulers of the Freljord." She backed off and Ashe took a step forward to grab the gypsy's attention.

"Any information you might have regarding what the summoners have been doing in secret would be greatly appreciated," Ashe implored him in the sweetest voice she could muster. Tryndamere faked a cough.

"Alright, alright. You northerners are rather blunt when it comes to your business, aren't ya?" Fate grumbled. "I found the fine lady over there and her bird watching people walk by some corridor with so much focus I nearly mistook her for a statue. Should've seen her jump when I got her attention. Anyways, she asks me if I can pull off a few tricks to see what's going on in there, and I assume you know what kind of deal we made, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, we do, just get on with it," Quinn shot at him from the corner.

"The story ain't half as fine without context!" Fate protested. "Whatever, long story short, they can't hide from Destiny. The perimeter was set up with some anti-surveillance wards, though, or something, so everything was covered up in a dark grey fog. All except for one portion, though, and it was the area right above some kind of wacky portal. One shade of magenta-purple or whatever you want to call it, as far as the eye could see. So some crazy rift in space just appeared in the middle of the Institute, and there's got to be some of the summoners over there doing who knows what to it."

Ashe couldn't shake the nagging feeling that it involved Lissandra in some way, and whenever she thought of Lissandra, she couldn't help but shiver at the chill that the idea of the Watchers returning brought. Ever since the Ice Witch had vanished during a temporary League match failure a week ago, the Avarosan population had come to her with concerns, wondering what the sorceress had in mind. If Lissandra had escaped the confines of the Institute, did she have some sealed away power greater than the summoners that she had kept hiding? If so, had she been holding back this entire time when she could've fought against Ashe with greater power? Those questions had haunted Ashe as of recent, and the secret affairs of the Institute didn't help matters at all.

"I can attempt to figure out what could possibly be behind door number two, if you would like," Fate offered, getting Ashe's attention. "Now this sort of method is rather unreliable, but if you're a gambling woman and are willing to give a little tribute to Lady Luck, something might work out."

"Speak plainly," Tryndamere commanded. "What would you have us do?"

"The things I ask for are for nothing more than the sake of the ritual." He pulled out an old deck of cards from his coat pocket, the weathered backs suggesting that he had kept the same specimen for several years. "Would you happen to have a gold piece on you?"

Hardly in a predicament of insufficient funding, Ashe and Tryndamere had plenty of money on them (the whereabouts of which they would never mention) and although she had most of it in the form of the paper bills which the Institute used as their currency, she always liked carrying a few gold pieces on her because it felt better having the real worth of gold accessible to her. All the city-states with the exception of Piltover and Zaun always recognized the weight of gold, and the champions who hailed from them were better convinced by its voice rather than the flimsy contract of a couple strips of paper.

"I would, yes," Ashe affirmed as she went to search through her purse for one of the small aureolae.

"Now hold on, Ashe," Tryndamere interrupted, "isn't this what you would call a bribe?"

Twisted Fate laughed. "Well, I suppose he isn't wrong. Imagine what the people would think, the queen of Freljord succumbing to political corruption! The worth of a single gold piece is rather infinitesimal, although I suppose the stories could be easily exaggerated… eh, I was only going to keep it if you didn't ask for it back. The important part is that the gold is there, and not whose hands it's in."

Her husband lowered his shoulders very slightly. Ashe had finally fished one out and tossed the sphere to Fate, who snatched it out of the air with one hand. "Right. Just some gold dust and a fair lady's kiss, and I can reveal-"

"Are you aware of what you're asking for?" Tryndamere nearly shouted at him, quickly heading to Ashe's side.

"Calm down, I have no need to go after married women," Fate assured him. "Like I said, it's simply a part of the ritual, and while tradition does suggest a peck on the cheek at the very least, if I could simply lay a kiss on her hand, that should suffice."

She placed a hand on Tryndamere's shoulder, stroking it ever so slightly. "Don't worry, dear, I can assure you I have eyes for you alone," she told him, eliciting a faint blush from the barbarian king. She extended her other hand out to the gypsy. "Do what you must. I can't guarantee that I can hold Trynd back if you take too long, though."

Understanding her point, Fate hastily walked over to her, meeting her icy stare with a sheepish look, and bringing her hand up to his face, softly planted his lips on her skin for half a second before retreating as quickly as he had advanced. "Thank you. What comes after now is simply to the strings of fortune, but people who have been riding on the edge for as long as I have begin to learn some tricks to cutting the deck," he said, shuffling the deck in his hands. "Call it the heart of the cards."

After a few bridges shuffles and a rather arbitrary rearrangement of some cards that had 'accidentally' fell out during some of the maneuvers, Fate spread out the deck to show all the cards out to Ashe. "You simply need to pick a card, and the magic will do the work for you."

With the values unknown to her and every card having the same back covering to it, Ashe didn't have any opportunity to ponder about her selection, and she chose one, keeping her eyes away from it until Fate told her what to do. "And now what? Do I look at it, or do you still need it?"

"Go ahead," Fate encouraged her. "What you'll see is not the card design, but a completely original image. It may be a concrete scene of what we might find in there, it might be a symbol, it could be anything at all."

Ashe flipped over the card, seeing the number six inscribed in the top left and the bottom right corner. And sure enough, instead of the usual diamond or spade pattern she might find in the center, she saw a single elaborate image that caused her to nearly drop it in surprise.

A glowing cyclopean eye looked at back at her, in the center of a giant head from which stemmed a small thin body in comparison. Its geometric figure had several hands, which extended outwards from its body in an ominous religious pose, its body bare except for the rings around its wrists. She had not seen a picture of such a figure in several years, since the day that Lissandra had left the Avarosan and they had found out that she had faked her lineage as a Freljordian princess.

The figure of a Frozen Watcher.

* * *

 **A/N:** the plot thickens

I got the idea of an Iceborn Ashe from my very good friend user Mach56 and his story "Power Struggle" which you should all take a look at if you didn't already. I tried to make my Tryndamere and Ashe close to his descriptions, but his is a rather serious story and I just had to place some banter between the other champions in this story and the royal couple. It doesn't seem that Tryndamere take romantic jokes all too well.


	15. A Promise to Her

Everyone had a scent, the Spirit Walker once told her. Lend your ear to the sounds of nature around you, and you will realize it yourself.

Janna didn't have the nose that Udyr did, but she controlled a force just as effective. The particles of rust on the breeze that came in with the opened door blew towards her, a faint feeling of worn hextech material rushing past her skin and the scent of automobile oil. The winds of techmaturgy, of modernization. Progress.

"Cupcake's not coming with us," Vi informed them as she entered the room. "She's bogged herself down in her work. The stuff we've been working on with the Institute… well, let's say it got a bit too much for her." The Enforcer fell into one of the lounge's armchairs, her figure looking much smaller with her hands not inserted in her usual hextech gauntlets. "And I don't even want to know what happened to the plant woman, but I guess the weather got to her and she's in the basement of some summoning building under artificial lighting burying herself in soil."

Sitting across the couch from Janna, Jayce scrunched his face in discomfort. "I… don't think I want to know what she's doing. So then we're just waiting on Ezreal, then?"

"Right." Vi made a fist and punched her other hand with it. "The squirt better not be late, else I've got five friends that'd love to say hello to his fa-"

"Hey, easy with the violent threats!" a youthful voice rang out from behind Vi's armchair, as Janna caught sight of the explorer making his way towards them, donning a striking blue blazer. "It's not a simple matter to get around when Mundo pulls you over for a few words."

The wind mage shuddered, knowing the mutated scientist's appetite for more… hands-on experiments. It didn't seem that Snowdown's quick approach put a dent into any of the plans the doctor had, as he continued his regular stalking of the halls and more than often than not pulling aside some unlucky summoner for empirical experimentation if he did not have Singed or Viktor or another one of his Zaunite colleagues with him to distract him. And Mundo had no qualms extending his research field to include other champions. Janna had an uncanny talent of skirting around trouble and letting the wind quickly carry her away from tense situations, but a cleaver in the shoulder blade would crumple even the most resilient of warriors.

"Well, if this is all we have, might as well head there as soon as we can," Jayce advised. "The lines are completely incorrigible."

"Tomorrowman's got a point there." Vi got to her feet. "I ain't gonna miss the mosh pit like last time. No one expected Karthus to actually stage dive, you know? Craziest thing I've seen from those Shadow Isles guys, and we're talking about a guy who dies for a living. Isn't that right, Janna?"

Janna slowly rose as well, tucking her hands into the oversized sleeves of her white jacket. "Well, it was pretty shocking, but I don't remember much else from that part of the concert. Honestly, I was looking forward to Sona's solo performances." She gave Jayce a small smile of gratitude as the scientist held the door open for her as the group headed into the night air. "The piano ballads are coming back from last year, but she's going to add some songs from her recent DJ style this time."

"Can't say I'm a big fan of either heavy metal or classical," Ezreal chimed in. "But crowds are my thing, and house music is the best way to do it." He gave Jayce a conspiratorial look. "I'll never get tired of telling the story of the last house party we went to, that night must've went gone down into a record book or something…"

"If we're talking about all the times you threw up, then we might be able to contact Guinness about that one," Jayce supplied.

Ezreal glared. "But the girls were on fire that night! Even I couldn't believe that the Lunari girl had hips that could move that way."

"Pretty sure that was another one of those nineteen year-old summoners."

"How could that not have been Diana?" the explorer insisted. "Sure, she didn't have the typical lunar tattoos and whatnot, but I'd have hidden them too if I was going to show my face in a place like that."

The Enforcer had taken Jayce's side. "Kid, I hate to burst your bubble, but I'm pretty sure that isn't how that loony works."

While the Grand Ball certainly had its fair share of live music and instrumentalists, that didn't stop informally organized gatherings from spreading publicity and holding events in the days immediately prior. The eccentric band Pentakill, a favorite amongst the diverse potpourri of races and cultures that clashed in the Institute, held an open-air concert the day before the ball on a grassy knoll at the entrance to the Institute buildings proper, just past the high black iron gates that protected the grounds from the outside world. With its climactic position at the end of the calendar year, the concert, which included appearances from several other musical groups, served as a culmination of the year's best hits, mixed in with a dash of popular melodies through the ages. Add in the attendance of many of the League's champions and the high demographic of young adults in the summoner population, and one would find a staggering multitude of people under the night sky and an incomprehensible mess to clean up the following morning.

Vi pointed to a side path snaking through of the gardens away from the main walkways. Janna brought up the rear as she followed the three in a single file line towards the side entrance designed for League champions only - it saved them a lot of time one would usually spend waiting in lines and getting screened and cleared to attend the venue, but they still had to come relatively early else the die-hard concert attendees would still fill up the dance floor before they could make a move in.

A faceless summoner on one end of the checkpoint waved them in, while the other more enthusiastic bouncer gave some of them high-fives. The wind mage stopped for a while to the amorphous blob, one of the few friends she had met in Zaun.

"Looking good as always, Janna," Zac greeted her as he condensed into a smaller size so that she did not have to crane her neck up.

Despite the night air, Janna felt a little heat rise in her cheeks. "You're too kind like always, Zac. I didn't realize you're sticking around for Snowdown though. You usually go visit your parents, if I recall."

The Secret Weapon took a seat on the stool beside him, a rather complex effort as he attempted to compact his posterior. "Mom and Dad will be fine without me for a few days. I figured I'd like to get my first chance at seeing Snowdown celebrated at the Institute. I was so surprised when it started snowing the other day! Never seen anything like it."

"It would surprise you, wouldn't it?" Janna realized. "The air was so stifling back home… we rarely got snow in the winter even though Piltover consistently got over six inches."

"And the stuff that we did get wasn't real snow," Zac reminisced. "The chemicals in the air gave it that nasty light orange appearance. I don't think I remember seeing many kids playing around in it, but here it's so much nicer. Even Bard showed up in a thick woolen sweater and scarf to toss some snowballs around with some of the younger summoners."

Janna giggled at the thought of the caretaker and his meeps frolicking around the snow, and began to issue a reply before she heard a voice calling her name. "Hey, Janna, we got to get a move on, else we'll never make it," Ezreal called out.

She offered an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, I've got to run off-"

"I understand." Zac gave her a wide grin. "Go catch up with the other champions, have some fun out there!" He extended a long arm to her as he leaned in, whispering one final message. "But do me a favor and make sure you look out for yourself. Snowdown isn't the only reason I'm here. Institute wanted some extra security. For what exactly, they never told me, but they seemed worried."

The wind mage nodded in understanding and hurried to catch her friends. It seemed more and more champions got caught up in the High Council's esoteric movements orbiting around the Grand Ball. Now whenever she glimpsed at the calendar to count down the days until Snowdown, she felt a sickening feeling in her chest. It hardly felt like they were waiting for a celebration any more.

She caught the gloved hand of Jayce towering over a throng of summoners and made her way down some stairs through the already crowded area to a spot near the left side of the assigned area where the inventor waited for her. True to what her friends had said, summoners and fellow champions alike had already filled up all the desirable areas. Janna couldn't even see the grass beneath the feet of the tightly packed mob gathered in the open area directly in front of the stage. A flash of hot pink hair indicated that Vi had successfully made her way in, whether by force or not.

"I'm not much for crowds," Jayce spoke as he followed her gaze as they observed a summoner and Ezreal squabbling over some mundane issue. To their surprise they watched as more and more people began to take the summoner's side as the explorer found himself rudely shoved out of the mosh pit.

"It seems Ezreal isn't as well," Janna pointed out, getting a chuckle out of the scientist. The stage lights suddenly turned on, turning the attention of everyone in the venue forward as a few short cheers came from the crowd, and she could hear the noises of electric guitars and keyboards fiddle around as the band went through their sound checks.

"Show's about to begin. Hold my seat for me for a bit, will you?" Jayce asked. "Going to grab a drink before it's too late." He hurried up the stairs and quickly disappeared into the constantly pushing and jostling crowd.

A few seconds later Janna heard the shuffling of robes alighting next to her. "Sorry, this seat's ta-" she tried to tell the newcomer before recognizing the dark skin and traditional dress of a certain duchess. Karma had a light blue sweater pulled around her as she let out a shiver from the winter air.

"Peace, Janna. I am aware that your inventor friend is here, but it would be rather discourteous to pass by a friend without greeting them," the Ionian said.

"Oh, I don't mind at all!" She had encountered Karma many times both on and off the fields of combat; many of the supports habitually drew close to each other and their naturally compassionate natures made it so they frequently saw each other in places such as the medical wing where the summoners called on them to assist in hospital procedures. "I hope you've been well."

"Well enough to be thankful for," Karma replied heavily. Her tone seemed somber enough, and as she turned to face her Janna could see several lines of worry mar the normally serene face of the spiritualist.

"You sure? You seem a bit… deflated."

"It's nothing of serious concern," Karma assured her. "The Ionian bloc had undergone some… unexpected problems earlier, and we had to put in a little extra work to fix the situation. Such is the weight of ensuring that the Grand Ball goes smoothly."

Janna wondered what the Ionians had prepared. The island nation had the distinction of holding a short culture performance at the ball, and Janna remembered how last year the three Kinkou ninjas performed an impressive routine of old Ionian martial arts in the middle of a dazzling electric field that Heimerdinger had assembled. Piltover didn't have the personnel at the ball to match a spectacle like that, especially considering how Caitlyn and Vi usually had duties to attend to at home.

"So you're coming this year, too, Karma?" Janna asked.

The duchess nodded. "I am honored to accompany Lee to it. It will be a rather unique experience for him, considering his disabilities. But I am sure it won't end up being too much of a problem. He's shown me that he is surprisingly adept at ballroom dances."

Janna didn't doubt it, noting the monk's ability to perform precise dashes to enemies and allies alike simply by echolocation and sensing the thermal changes between champions and the environment.

"I'm afraid I must get down to my company as well, though," Karma told her. "It is always good to speak you, Janna." She bid her farewell, bowing respectfully as she weaved through the crowd going further down the stairs.

Right on cue, Jayce returned to his seat, settling into it rather wearily. "Oof. Line was rowdier than I expected."

Janna was caught off from responding as noises from the stage brought both champions' attention to a thin spectral figure taking hold of the microphone in his skeletal fingers. "Ladies and gentlemen, friends and fiends, dead and those on their way, your humble servant welcomes you…" The stage dimmed until only one spotlight shone on the Deathsinger. As much as she hated to admit it, Karthus did have a natural talent for theatrics. "To Pentakill!" A chromatic display of lights flickered all over the stage as Mordekaiser played a wildly thrashing melody on his guitar. Janna felt another hand on hers, softly squeezing it, and turned to her left where she could barely make out Jayce smiling at her. The urge to tense up usually struck her in such situations, but with his touch she felt no such agitation, and she returned his smile.

She promised herself she would enjoy this night.

* * *

A lot of other women would've bristled at the term 'delicate,' but Janna knew where she stood. Her extended exposure to the elements of the air had smoothed over her body, especially her legs and feet where callouses from long periods of walking became nonexistent. While her powers did give her an appearance that many would liken to a goddess, it also made her frame lighter than usual and did not at all give her a constitution that could handle more than several hits. That extended to the force that the speakers on the stage exerted as the rambunctious sound of the metal band on stage threatened to topple Janna over more than once that night.

She had to thank Jayce for choosing seats very far from the stage, the only thing that allowed her to weather through the first half of Pentakill's catalogue of heavy metal songs. And while her whole body shook uncomfortably to the torrent of double bass pedaling that Olaf provided to the onslaught, she still managed to keep a smile on her face as the last notes of the most recent song, an 'inspiring' power ballad, faded away and turned into a huge roar from the audience.

It began to die down into ripples of murmurs as the lighting turned a dim blue and the male band members began to exit the stage, leaving the Maven of the Strings beginning a slower piano melody, accompanied by some synth noises, the introduction to a classical ballad that topped the charts ten or so years ago. Janna breathed a sigh of relief as she drew respite from the thunderous clamoring of the earlier songs.

"Your favorites, huh?" Jayce nudged her with his shoulder.

"Everything's a lot more beautiful when it's, well, quieter," Janna admitted. "...I must sound like the most boring girl in the world to you."

She felt him clutch at her hand again, raising it up to hold it in both of his. "You're just talking nonsense. Take a look at the world. Everyone's gearing up to try to be the next big thing, hell, we both remember when you revealed your avatar status and that next big thing was going to be you. But you stepped away from the spotlight rather than trying to make yourself fit into a mold that doesn't truly shape you."

Janna vaguely heard a young woman's vocals, probably that red-headed Piltover idol that Ezreal had talked about for nearly two days incessantly, but she had a much more prominent distraction right next to her. She didn't even try to hide the blush creeping up her cheeks.

"I love excitement and adventure just as much as the next guy," Jayce continued, "but when it comes down to it I'm just hoping for peace and security at the end of the day, and there's no one in the world that can set my mind at ease, who can just radiate a feeling of serenity like you can. Excuse me for my terrible pun when I say you are the eye of the storm."

She giggled. As much as her heart was racing, she had to acknowledge his vast experience in theatrical speeches.

"And I don't think the song's going to run long enough, so I'm just going to wrap it up. Janna, would you… would you go to the ball with me?"

She threw her arms around him, gravitating to the warmth of his body as he reciprocated the embrace. "Oh, Jayce, you know I would love to." Raising her head away from his chest, she caught his gaze before taking his head in both hands and pressing his lips to hers, holding the glorious finish for a couple of seconds.

When their mouths drew apart, she had to resist the urge to burst out in laughter at his wide-eyed stare. "I'd pay a large amount of money to capture your face in a picture frame."

"And I'd bribe your supplier twice the amount to make sure it never gets to you," he retorted bitterly before breaking his stoic look and smiling. "It was just… you know, rather unexpected."

"I hope it was a good surprise," she said, putting on her best innocent face.

"I wouldn't trade it away for everything behind the Piltover Grand Vault," he told her, his arm snaking around her waist and drawing her close.

The second half of the concert catered to more casual audiences, much to Janna's relief. Several pop songs found their way onto the instruments of Pentakill, who to their credit did quite a good job in staying true to the original source material (although the idol from Piltover always took the mic away from Karthus when covering songs with female vocals). A thrilling metal rendition of "Carol of the Bells" eventually sent the crowd off after three or four encores, and as the last chord faded into silence the couple hastily made their way up the stairs in their efforts to beat the crowds.

They surprisingly found Vi already at the appointed post-concert meeting place, and the enforcer grinned when she saw their hands interlocked. "Took you two lovebirds long enough, didn't it?"

Janna took a step back out of embarrassment and Jayce scowled, but neither of them directly answered the question. "Where's Ez?" he asked.

"Haven't seen him since we got in," the enforcer shrugged. "I'd really be surprised if he's off taking some girl to his room - oh, hey, does that guy look familiar to you, Jayce?" She pointed down the concrete pavement, where Janna could barely make out the silhouette of a hunched over figure.

"I don't know what you - oh!" Jayce's face lit up in realization. "Yeah, the body type looks really similar to a friend of mine," he said, raising his voice. "You don't suppose it could be…"

"Ezreal!" Vi yelled at the slouching figure as it approached, going over to greet him. The explorer looked absolutely exhausted, and Janna wondered if the crowd or the alcohol had done more damage.

"Not… in the mood… Vi…" Ezreal managed to say as he dragged his body over to a nearby bench and collapsed onto it.

"You know, I've heard of some messy rejections, but you look way too worn out. You try to hit on Elise's spiderlings or something?" Vi queried.

"Man, you don't understand." Ezreal rolled his body over to face her. "It was going great, I found Diana in the crowd, moved over her to dance. I haven't hit it off with a girl that quickly ever."

"I'm surprised… not even at you, but the fact that she'd be so social," Jayce said.

"All I know is, those moves that she did… they didn't teach them in the Targon temples," Ezreal sighed.

"So wait, why are you all mopey and look like Udyr's been chasing you?" Vi wondered. "Sounds like she's pretty interested in you."

"Yeah, it was going amazing until," Ezreal paused, apparently trying to repress some painful memory. "I messed up. I'm not even sure how I did it. But yeah, I was whispering in her ear, about to move in for the make-out… and I called her sunshine."

Janna winced imagining the aftermath. Jayce looked away from him, putting a hand to the back of his neck. Vi's cheeks puffed out as she hit the bench next to Ezreal and began doubling over in laughter, hands clutching her stomach.

Ezreal angrily swatted at her with a hand, but she backed off in time. "I know, I know, it was terrible! I just- oh, god…" He sank down onto the bench, letting out a wheeze that even Janna had to admit was completely pathetic.

Vi composed herself enough to properly talk respond to him. "Alright, I know where this is going." Ezreal yelped as Vi hoisted her arms underneath his armpits and lifted him up despite the explorer's protests, slinging his prone body over her shoulder. "Come on, Romeo, I'm taking you back to your room before you freeze up outside."

She turned to Janna, giving her a knowing wink before heading off. "Vi, wait!' Janna called out too late as the enforcer had already ran off. "The Piltover dorms are this way. Why's she going the long way?"

Janna heard Jayce gulp beside her. "I think I might know why." He dropped eye contact with her for a second before lightly tugging at her hand. "But whatever. Here, let's head back."

Most of the people in attendance had already moved on to afterparty venues far from the residential dorms, so no misplaced sounds disrupted the peace the couple enjoyed as they walked back. Before long Janna found herself resting her head on Jayce's shoulder, the silence soothing her and a welcome change from the loud environment of the concert. "Thank you, Jayce. For… you know, tonight. Everything."

"Don't mention it," the inventor told her, opening the door to the building to let her in as they both walked in to avoid the chilly night air. He took a deep breath. "I have to be honest, I feel like earlier would've underwhelmed you. If I had a better location to bring you to I'd have gotten flowers or something but-"

Janna put a finger to his mouth, closing his lips, and smiled. "It's alright. You would just be doing too much for me. Besides, you said it yourself, I stepped away from the spotlight. I'm not a high-maintenance girl."

Jayce stopped. "I… I didn't mean it like that," he stammered.

They hadn't walked for long, but she already could see the gold-plated numbers indicating Jayce's room behind him. "I understand. I wasn't trying to be sarcastic or anything, I'm being serious when I said I was fine. It's not like I can't say you've already been there for me more times than I can imagine."

Jayce began fishing around in his pocket, probably for his electronic room key. "Well. That's a relief, I'm glad we understand each other."

"But now that you mention it, it feels like I'm taking advantage of you. I haven't done anything in return for you, while you've been there with me during… those kinds of days."

Jayce slid the card into the slot and a faint beep indicated that the door had unlocked, but he turned to face her first. "Now you're being ridiculous. It's not some kind of obligation. It's just a thing that a friend would do. Don't feel indebted to think up some kind of compensation for me, I'll be fine."

"I'm not letting you get away with that magnanimous approach, mister!" Janna protested. "I'm insisting on paying you back."

"For the last time," Jayce sighed, "you don't have to."

"But I want to!"

"You shouldn't!"

"I will!"

Something flashed past Jayce's eyes; Janna knew that look, which struck him when he got one of his ideas. "You know, it's rather pointless to keep up this argument in the hallway, so if you really want to be stubborn about it, let's settle it in my room."

"Fine!" Janna agreed as Jayce swung open the door and ushered her in. Her eyes widened in amazement at the large amount of mechanical parts cluttered all over his desk, and she figured his workspace back at Piltover must have looked similar to it, although she had never seen either place before. A few science fiction movie and soccer team posters hung on his walls, including a personally signed green jersey from one of the Piltover Sonics. If not for the pieces of hextech lying around and his trademark MercurY Hammer on a pedestal in a corner, she might've thought she had stumbled into a typical high school boy's room.

"You are such a nerd," she giggled.

"Hey, most of my stuff is back home," Jayce said. "We don't exactly get a mule and forty acres here at the Institute, you know." He took off the black jacket he had been wearing, snatching a spare hanger from the closet and putting it away. "Make yourself at home," he offered, grabbing the chair from the desk and sitting upon it.

Seeing no other chairs in the room, Janna moved over to his bed, sitting down upon the springy mattress. "You're doing it again! Using your acts of hospitality to try to make me forget about our argument! But I will get you back for it, I promise."

Jayce raised his hands in mock surrender. "Well, I don't doubt that you'll make good on your promise. I guess I have to concede."

"That's… uh, right?" Janna pushed her hands back along the bedding. "I didn't realize you would give up so easily."

"Hey, I could only keep up for so long, but I know my place, and I know that women don't lose arguments."

"Well, that is true." Janna smirked. "I guess that means, vi-vi-victory!" The yawn came out of her halfway through the word, and she had to resist lying down on his bed and calling it a night right then and there.

"Tired already? I suppose it is getting late. Here, let me walk you to your room," he offered.

"It's pretty far down the hall," Janna said. "You would have to carry me there."

"You're being ridiculous," Jayce protested, "but I have an equally ridiculous idea. You could stay over for the night, considering that you're already on the bed."

He had her right where he wanted her, but she didn't have any energy to come up with an alternative. "You were planning this from the start, weren't you?"

"You were the one who wanted to keep arguing with me."

"Fine, but shouldn't I sleep on the couch or something?"

"I don't think you would ever choose that over the bed, and especially not to be courteous."

Janna grumpily lifted the covers and pulled them over her. "You frustrate me."

The inventor softly chuckled as he moved towards the bed to join her.

"Wa-wait, I thought you were going to sleep on the couch, then!" Janna exclaimed.

"Do you not want me here?" Jayce raised an eyebrow.

Suddenly the bed had turned into the rough asphalt streets of Zaun and the headboard became the dumpster behind which they extorted her out of all that she had. Having second thoughts would be an understatement. But the tranquility of his room didn't quite leave her periphery, and even though they had forced her on her knees, face in the dirt, she could still sense him with her, and the warm reality which he brought.

"I-I'm not too sure about this…" The conflict still raged within her.

Jayce's look softened immediately. "Right, I'm sorry. I got so excited, I forgot to take into account that your memories might come up again…"

"But I remember what I told you before. I trust you, and I want to show it to you," Janna insisted, pulling the covers up. "Come here."

He slid into the bed, and she curled up alongside him, his arm around her waist. The light in the room dimmed to near darkness as Jayce pushed a switch next to the bed, and as their figures sank into the softness of the bed, Janna imagined herself floating in a foreign ocean, clinging to the only piece of driftwood that she could find.

"Please never let go," she whispered.

"I won't."

* * *

Jayce had already left when she opened her eyes; Janna always considered herself an early riser, although the events of the previous day had likely worn her out. Propping herself up, she felt that the room had changed quite dramatically since she had last seen it. The Mercury Hammer wasn't on its stand, although he might have taken it out. Jayce seemed to have cleared his table of spare parts, although she didn't know where he might have relocated them. Across from the bed lay a large widescreen TV, a detail that she hadn't noticed the first time, but one that didn't surprise her. The rooms all came with a television set as part of the deal, seeing as she didn't have any pressing matters to attend to in the morning, Janna figured she could pass some time going through the channels.

She found the remote on Jayce's nightstand and pointed it at the black screen, but instead of finding the Valoran news station or one of the generic morning cartoons, the screen showed her what looked like an empty jail cell. The iron bars obscured part of the view from the camera, but she could make out a metal chair in the corner with someone or something sitting in it, the figure's face obscured by long dark hair.

Janna felt tempted to switch the channel, never a big fan of crime shows, or worse, horror movies.

"Janna Windforce."

Her whole body went rigid as the thing in the chair, the TV, something had called out her name. It sounded like a very loud whisper, a dusky tone that seemed like it had come straight out of the smoke of a Zaunite factory.

The television image had encountered some kind of interference, as static began to interrupt the signal every few seconds while the voice continued to play, its message cut off as well.

 _"...watched…. for years…. your mind…. now I…. no longer bound…. not dreams…. waking…."_

The thing in the corner had risen from its chair, beginning to move towards the front of the cell. She could feel something shaking her. How she wanted to tear her eyes away from that screen, to plug her ears from that smoking voice.

 _"...soon…. will come…. the shadows…. WAKE…. and seize…."_

It had come halfway, its walk a slow, agonizing march. The voice had become louder.

 _"...rise…. UP…. the altar… Roshan…."_

That thing had begun to pound on the walls, rattling the iron bars. And the voice continued to speak, but Janna felt like she could hear another, fainter voice further away, yelling.

 _"wrath…. consume…. WAKE UP…. nothing…."_

Its motions became more frantic and enraged as it started pulling apart the iron bars to make a space for it to fit through. Janna couldn't tell whose ragged breathing she was hearing.

 _"...you cannot… SUMMONERS…."_

It had made its way out of the cell, and resumed its advance towards the camera with increased speed. Janna found herself backing away, pressing against the headboard.

"Stop, stop it! Don't come any closer!" she yelled at the television.

 _"...will not…. restrained…."_

"No! Go away!"

 _I won't._

"Jayce!" She could feel the tears in her eyes. "Come back!"

 _"...soon…. free…."_

"Please come back!" They had given way to sobs, the drops streaming down her face. "Please help me!"

 _I won't._

* * *

 **A/N:** even when I write happy chapters they're not


	16. A Memory in Opacity

The roaring of the furnace and the incessant burning of the coals on her arm brought Fiora's consciousness back to the surface. She felt like she remembered the memory all too well, but the realization that slowly came to her as her waking brain correctly recalled recent events brought her more distress than even the hottest fires of hell could bring. Expecting the worst, Fiora turned her head to the right.

Someone had placed her body heavily favoring the right side of the bed, and her outstretched arm lay perpendicular to the rest of her along a table. Fiora had to blink a couple more times to process the peculiar sight that greeted her. The metal appendage extending from her shoulder was not an arm. Despite the physical similarity to the human form, especially the small, thin metal stubs that another person might've called fingers, Fiora could never accept this steel substitute. A true swordsman spent all his time in the study of the blade molding the steel to respond to the flesh's touch; this prosthetic was nothing but a tool fit to hold another tool.

At the same time, she had noticed her vision limited to one of her eyes. It didn't process to her immediately, but she soon felt the weight of bandages wrapped around her left eye, covering part of her cheek and head as well. The creature had not directly attacked her eyes, but in the struggle she has sustained a blow to her head that caused her to bleed directly around it. She feared that the lack of immediate treatment had caused the injury to complicate further.

The torturous struggle came back to her. Fiora herself had screamed for them to get it away from her, the bite of the portal beast infusing some kind of dark energy into her arm that scorched her from within and threatened to corrupt the rest of her body. She should've expected that the Institute chose to solve the problem by removing her arm completely.

Instinctively, she tried to move her arm forward, finding the metal barely budging because of its increased weight. As she put more effort into the action, Fiora felt the point where the metal fused with her upper arm burn from the wounds, but she kept with the motion. It felt clumsy and unbalanced, as she had expected, and it made a terrible sound as it grated against the table. Still, she kept her back-and-forth motion, slowly becoming adjusted with the added weight and learning to maneuver it. Getting to move the fingers would prove much trickier. With the lack of natural nerves in her arm, Fiora didn't know how she would get the artificial arm to acknowledge her movement, but she did sense a framework of electrical circuits moving up and down the arm, and after a few tries, she saw the index finger successfully twitch. Repeating the feat with the other four fingers, Fiora could get all parts of the hand moving, and soon make opening and closing motions, including the formation of a fist.

She couldn't bear to look at it. That barbaric creature had ruined her body, humiliated her in combat, and taken the part of her she relied on most to carry out the lot assigned to her. A scrap of metal could never protect the Lightshields. A king and his lineage needed a loyal knight to stay by their side, a tried and true bond forged in blood and tempered in the forge of the trials they went through together. If Fiora and the Laurent house had witnessed their honor and nobility fall into jeopardy after the disgraceful fiasco that her father had gone through, then this fate that fell upon her would definitely erase it. A machine could not lead a household. A machine could not ensure the success and posterity of a dynasty. Fiora shuddered at the thought. No one ever spoke of the Machine Herald as a human being, and now she had lost the label of humanity as well.

She wondered if Viktor had provided the replacement limb. Would he eventually come to take her back to his laboratory and shelve her along with his other inventions? Her thoughts turned to Orianna, the machine that attempted to replace the daughter of an overambitious inventor. While not a creation done by Viktor, the cold, emotionless face on that automaton symbolized a reality that the duelist rejected. Fiora quickly decided she would fight to the death to latch onto the little shred of honor left to her. She would go out as a Laurent rather than the latest model for a revolution that had nothing glorious about it.

A brief episode of panic ran through her as she moved her left arm, wildly shaking it. At least that limb had retained its authenticity. Fiora grasped at the blanket covering her body, letting the fabric slip through her fingers, reaching for the sheet over the mattress, feeling the pillow at her back. Its soft touch soother her fingertips - the remaining five she still had. She threw her head back and let out a deep breath she hadn't realized she had held. Moving her hand over her chest, Fiora felt the rapid beating of her heart. She recognized this feeling of mounting dread threatening to envelop her, even though it had been years since anything could get under her skin and shake the unflappable visage she put on for everyone.

Fear was a dangerous opponent. More than a match for any of the other fine duelists of Demacia.

From a young age the duelist had learned how to deal with fear, one of the greatest hurdles that any master would have to get over if she truly wished to claim a sublime understanding of her craft. Nothing could completely eradicate it, only pushing it down deeper and deeper into the depths so that one would never see it re-emerge. Fiora forced herself to calm her senses, collecting her disposition so she could focus her thoughts away from the feeling of fear to another prominent thing dwelling in her mind: bladework itself. She went through the forms of the blade, grips and stances, opening moves and defenses, reliving the tutelage that she experienced since her youngest days, when girls her age tittered around with dolls and acted like princesses and lived in worlds with which they would never come into contact.

Loosen your grip, her father instructed her. Her first lesson. Relax the muscles in your fingers. Your sword is an extension of your arm. You do not walk around with your arm tensed up. Fiora thought he had created the simplified explanation to convey it in terms a six-year-old could understand, but she later understood that a skilled fencer had to go into combat utilizing that very same mantra. It took thousands and thousands of swings and movements with the sword for it to feel natural to a young Fiora, and her father could easily imprint swordplay into her impressionable childish mind. Doing the same with a robotic arm with a mind already directed to operate a certain way would prove impossible.

The lessons came quick and her father made sure she never forgot them. Fiora hadn't taken up the sword for half a year when her father had made her bleed. A small cut along her upper arm, but when she spotted the scarlet liquid first flow freely she fell into a terrified frenzy. She screamed at her father, asking how he had the gall to strike his own daughter. Fiora knew her younger self often overreacted, but even so, she couldn't help but notice that as the first sign of betrayal. A parent would never harm their own child, would they? Despite her childish complaints, Fiora hadn't actually felt that much pain from the razor-thin cut, but it had set the tone for their relationship. Her father would waste no time easing her into the world of swordplay, where one's life hung on the edge of their blade.

She struggled to pinpoint her exact feelings towards him: first came total resentment, followed by a grudging acceptance of his stern teachings, and resentment once more. Never had she felt anything akin to genuine love for him ever since she started seriously wielding a sword.

The door on the far side of the room creaked to indicate an visitor coming in and the duelist quickly tensed, expecting Viktor to come in to examine the status of his latest specimen. When the prince entered in his stead, Fiora didn't completely release her sigh of relief, but she did drop the shoulders she realized she had lifted up and looked hopefully at him for a second before she caught herself staring and quickly averted her gaze.

She mustered up a hasty greeting and lowered her head in place of a bow. "I am sorry for failing you."

Jarvan had already reached her side - her right side, the one with that disgusting appendage - looking at the protruding limb with a regretful look in his eyes more than anything. He reached out over her reclining body to grab her other arm, pulling it towards him, cradling it in his grip, looking between the different limbs trying to reconcile the horrible truth that manifested itself to them.

"I have no words to make amends for what you ended up becoming," Jarvan lamented, "but I am the one who is so very, very sorry."

If Viktor hadn't showed up, at least while she had regained consciousness, Fiora still wondered how much involvement he had in the operation. "Who gave me this… this… thing?" She would lose the other before she called it an arm.

"The Zaunites had nothing to do with this," Jarvan assured her, which comforted her a little. But he hadn't answered her question.

"Then who…" She dreaded even finishing the sentence, but Fiora felt like she had to know.

Jarvan looked her in the eyes, his grey irises aged more than his father's, and took a deep breath. "One of the private technological groups that the creation of the Institute had driven out of their base of operations ten years ago. Or so we thought. The summoners must have been still closely linked with them, for their people showed up once the High Council realized how life-threatening your situation was in." He bit his tongue during the last sentence, looking ashamed to continue talking about the aftermath of the dive. "They called themselves PROJECT."

A rather simplistic name, but one that Fiora shuddered at all the same. She had not heard of the private enterprise at all, and even a passing connection to the summoners at the Institute made her wary of her benefactors' motives. A team of Demacian healers would have made her much more at ease with the whole situation, but as much as Fiora didn't want to admit it, their nation neither had the staff nor the expertise on hand to deal with her situation judging by the memories of the fight she had and the way Jarvan talked about it like he had a pair of anvils chained to his ankles.

"These… PROJECT people, they specialize in replacing body parts?" Even if Viktor had not taken her in, she still felt an equal amount of disgust at the notion that some people had treated her like some sort of artistic concept to show off.

"It's not quite like that," Jarvan said. "I received a summary of their manifesto. They claim they only want the optimal human performance in the subjects that are brought to them. PROJECT doesn't require, nor do they look for, people with irreversible injuries, but they just happen to be an organization that had an answer to your problem. Something we were willing to accept."

"Then they are no better than the scientist that they say they saved me from! I am as much of an aberration as that cyborg!" The strength and revulsion in her voice surprised Fiora. She seldom raised her voice, learning how to clamp down on negative emotions enough to not let them show through her words and actions, and she definitely had never done so in front of Jarvan, but Fiora just hadn't brought together the self-restraint needed to keep herself in check. "I… I apologize for my outburst," she hastily added. "I should not have become so upset…"

The prince put a finger to her lips, and Fiora felt the soft flesh brush over the cracked surface. His touch told her terrifying things, horrors she could've beheld and fixed for herself with a mirror. She must have looked to him, a broken, disheveled mess of tangled hair, torn skin, and an amputation, but she couldn't do anything about her appearance, trapped by her lethargy and dismal weakness, left to watch Jarvan's fingers move all too close to her . "You have every right to think that. I probably phrased my original explanation rather poorly. There is a difference between them and the twisted propaganda that Viktor calls his Glorious Evolution. He doesn't see anything positive in humanity, thinking that he can eliminate all our deficiencies by replacing all of the parts that make us human. But the people that came to us, to me… they said they had a specific purpose for you." Jarvan reached over, outside of Fiora's field of vision, and produced a rather large and official document, turning it to her so she could see the picture drawn on it, an intricate, detailed illustration with several in-depth diagrams and annotations drawn as they described each individual part. Though it looked unlike anything Fiora had ever worked with, she would never mistake the shape of that weapon.

"It sounds very selfish of me to say I was worried that you might never wield a sword again. To think I might have you still fight to protect the crown, to protect me," Jarvan said regretfully.

She spent much more of her attention analyzing the drawing laid out in front of her. Its dimensions looked larger than the length she handled. But she looked at the metal limb attached to her, and realized that they had probably constructed it according to those preferences, and not to her own hand now long gone.

"I swore on my honor that when I rose to this station, my sword would defend the ruling line of Demacia until my last breath." She sunk back down into the pillow. Summoning the conviction to repeat her oath to the prince took an inordinate amount of energy.

"I knew you might say something like that," Jarvan answered, glancing down to the floor beneath them, his voice suddenly small and ashamed. Fiora knew the prince never tried to put up an impossibly tough facade amongst his close friends and family, but she had never seen him speak trying to hold back some clearly bottled emotions. "You may be pleased to see that they still think you can return to fighting and your station. But…"

He refused to look her in the eye before speaking.

"...it requires another operation."

Fiora narrowed her eyes. They already had the nerve to change her once. "And what is this one going to do to me?"

Jarvan pointed to the bandage wrapped around her left eye. "The vision in your left eye is significantly impaired. While you might be able to live normally with some eyesight-correcting lenses, PROJECT is offering to fully correct your vision surgically."

So they wouldn't stop with just replacing her arm, but now they would mess with her eye as well? Even though she relied on no other part of her body as much as her sword arm, Fiora couldn't imagine them tampering with the bearers of one of her senses as well. She had already grown accustomed to seeing the world in the way she did. Would adjusting her eyes change her perceptions as well? The difference in perspective, she feared, probably set apart man from machine.

"They aren't seeking to change who you are, Fiora. They're creating the weapon to fit what they did, when they made their best efforts to make sure you keep as much of your identity as you can." He grasped at her left hand again, and an unnatural feeling of warmth surged through her. "So don't think you're anywhere near the same level as the puppets that Viktor creates to help him execute his own will. You are still your own woman, are you not?"

She always thought of the exemplar as an abnormally kind employer, but his latest actions had an air of intimacy around them that felt both tender and foreign. It puzzled Fiora; for all intensive purposes, she acted like one of those Kumungu tigers that a few aristocrats had imported from some underground markets used to defend their masters, although she did consider herself much more well-trained. She served as the Lightshield's pocket ace to use, deployed to certain positions where humans would not normally go except for the most extreme of circumstances. So why did the prince show so much concern over a tool experiencing wear and tear as expected?

"I am, but…"

"You were never one to act with uncertainty, Fiora. If you want to leave your station now, without modifications to your eyesight, no one would fault you for it in the slightest. There's no honor in sticking around after a close shave with death and only tempting the grim reaper further. I could never forgive myself if I tried to force you to keep working at it after what happened to you." Jarvan shifted his gaze over to the robotic arm and to her bandages before continuing. "But if you insist on staying, then you must give yourself over to PROJECT. I trust them to protect you, and I want you to know: you will never be anything less than the remarkable woman I will always think of you as, no matter how different you look."

Fiora wanted to tell him that he had missed the point, that she had never cared for all the bruises and injuries she had sustained in her defense of the Lightshields. No, even if they had replaced her arm with a perfect flesh-and-blood substitute, she couldn't look at it the same way. The limbs that the gods had given her, the ones that her mother had birthed her with, put her at the station she held now. An artificial limb, a repaired eye - those adjustments would never be the mark of a respected swordswoman. And then how would she stand with the other knights of the realm?

"You can't truly mean that, my prince…"

The exemplar looked wounded, as if Fiora had stabbed him in the side. "Do you doubt the sincerity of the words of the man you promised to protect?"

She couldn't meet his piercing gaze. "That's not it." The breath that she took, that she meant to steady herself, felt like inhaling nails into her lungs. Even though she didn't have the eloquence of her fellow nobles, Fiora never had a hard time trying to convey what she thought and felt. But her tongue began to tie around itself in frustration. She could never reconcile the different viewpoints she and the prince had of herself. Fiora could never equate the sword in the shadows of the Lightshields with the woman the prince viewed her as. "What I am to you is not… what you think it is."

"I understand what the dynamic between us is, perfectly," Jarvan retorted, "You keep thinking of yourself in the terms of the weapon that you use to carry out your duty. That is fundamentally incorrect. That thinking is done in terms of the chain of command between the Knight of One and the royal family of Demacia. Our relationship is the one between Fiora Laurent and Jarvan Lightshield IV."

Fiora blinked back a tear that she hadn't realized she held in her eye, grimacing at the momentary sign of weakness. "But that is my obligation. A knight cannot hold herself to that honor with the changes that these techmaturgists are doing to me. I sacrificed the core of my being on this stained altar of improvement. I was the Knight of One because of the ability that I had acquired myself."

"There is nothing about you that's being lost here!" He let go of her hand and backed away, leaning against the wall for a few seconds. Jarvan rarely became agitated when he spoke just with her, but Fiora did learn to fear his rare bouts of anger. To her relief, he quickly calmed down and made his way back to her bedside. "Do you think the core of your being was housed within your sword arm? Do you think your identity was compromised with that blow to your vision? Nothing about that represents the Fiora that I've come to know! And that honorable soul, that bastion of courage..." He reached towards her chest, placing his hand over the heart that seemed to double in its beating when he made contact with it.

"...is right here. So no more 'I was' or 'I can't.' You are the Knight of One because I chose you, the most loyal retainer I have known, the strongest source of chivalry I can place my faith in, the woman sans pareil."

Without equal. When she had first made a name for herself, she had often bragged about how no one could ever match her skill at the blade. What people had attributed to youthful arrogance had ended up being correct. Fiora would never again equal the fearless woman her younger self had been.

She couldn't collapse into his arms even if she wanted to. The mechanical arm might as well not have been attached to her, making any attempt to lean towards him impossible. But the power of his belief in her, in the trust that he had shown for her person, and not her blade or her skill or anything else had shaken her, and with a very evident lack of grace she fell sideways. And Jarvan quickly scooped her up into his arms anyways, wrapping both of them protectively around her shoulders as for once in her life, Fiora felt like she could lay there and forget about their troubles even for a second.

It ended as suddenly as it had begun. The prince backed away, a telling blush on his cheeks that she had never seen even when she saw him around Shyvana, and he cleared his throat. "Er, I don't mean to change subjects so sharply, but we still have a pressing issue to attend to."

How infuriatingly noble of him. "O-of course," Fiora stammered, still shaking from his touch. "I will agree to the operation. No matter what happens to me, I will never stray from your side."

Jarvan nodded, looking less like the persona of a mighty prince that he showed to everyone and more like a schoolboy that had lost his way in the middle of a crowd of his fellow students. "You have no idea how glad I am to hear those words."

"As are we," a metallic voice said with irritation as a couple of men in hooded robes entered the room with a loud slam of the door, pulling in a cart of surgical materials behind them They looked just like the Institute's summoners, except they had lowered their hoods and instead of faces, Fiora saw only metal helmets with dark blue visors in front of their faces. She didn't know whether to feel more surprised at their prompt entry or irritated realizing that they had eavesdropped on her private conversation with Jarvan.

"Proceeding with the operation at once with the subject's expressed agreement," the other man announced.

"You had them waiting outside the door this whole time?" Fiora fumed. He probably had not expected for her to take so long in making a decision.

"We don't have much time," the first man told them, drawing out a small metal cylinder that shone a light at the point it targeted. "The duelist is not aware, but we must complete this operation at once if you wish to return to fighting form by the time of the ball. Optic surgery with our material requires the eyes to rest for a certain period before being able to function at fully optimized levels."

Jarvan reached for her hand one last time, his fingers moving through the gaps in hers, and squeezing one last time before he let go. "I'll see you on the other side," he smiled at her.

Despite the intrusive looks that the scientists from PROJECT gave her, Fiora managed to return the smile back at him. The muscles around her mouth quivered at the unfamiliar movements, and she held back a chuckle thinking how ridiculous their exchange had been. Her gaze never left him, even as they began to strap her down and prepare their instruments, as he slowly stepped away from the bed, heading towards the door and turning to look at her every now and then before finally disappearing through behind the walls.

"This will put you to sleep," one of the men said, holding a medical needle up for her to see before raising it right above her left arm. "Are you prepared?"

Fiora nodded, a new determination born in her heart as she prepared to accept the gift PROJECT had laid out for her. An unholy blessing that her prince had sworn would not corrupt her.

If the feelings that overwhelmed her heart, the vessel that he said made her human, led to her pretentious view of him blossoming into a complete understanding of the man who fought so hard to protect her life, then Fiora decided she would surrender herself to this weakness just as her body surrendered itself to sleep.

* * *

The world awoke in a translucent haze. She gave a shake of her head, and the images in the rest of the room became clearly defined. Something didn't add up. A purple tint permeated all objects within her vision, from the sheets of the bed to the walls of the room to the liquid she found on the instruments on the medical tray. Her benefactors stood over her, nodding in approval at what they judged as a successful operation. She raised a hand to her eye, finding the bandages off, but instead of making contact with her skin, she found the glass surface of a screen instead. Moving the hand to explore her head further, she found the object to which the screen connected: a visor covering her forehead and a small part of the top of her head.

"The headgear has been set to protect your eyes from the natural elements," the PROJECT scientist explained. "You will wear this until your eyesight has been cleared from the initial aftereffects of the surgery."

"Understood," Fiora replied reflexively in a voice that she didn't recognize. The visor had probably affected her hearing as well, her own words coming to her as if she stood in a long, narrow tunnel. On the flip side, they had fixed the concerns the prince had with her eyesight, and she wasted no more thought about it.

"You should attempt standing." The scientists made way to give her room to get out of the bed. "We are running short on time, and the exemplar would like you to make your way towards him as soon as possible. There are events he wants you to be fully debriefed on."

The arm no longer felt foreign to her, rather, just as familiar as its twin. Fiora wondered if the PROJECT personnel had adjusted the connection between her new arm and her. It felt more like a part of her now and not just an attachment. Sitting up worked, so she next turned her attention to her legs which felt encased in a slab of concrete considering how long she hadn't moved them. They responded quickly enough to her intention, and with little effort she freed herself from her blankets and drew herself up into a sitting position, legs hanging over the side of the bed. Next came standing, and Fiora half expected herself to fall when her feet touched the floor and she lightly pushed herself off the bed, noting the distinct difference in sensations between her hands when they contacted the sheets. Her nerves had gone, but she could still sense everything with her right arm and hand just as she did with her left, the only difference being that the things she touched with her right all felt like they had some sort of thin metallic layer over them.

"I can stand without a problem," she reported to them.

"Good, good," the man holding the medical tray said as his partner opened the door for her. "You should go, then. One of the Demacians will be waiting to take you to the prince."

"Where is the sword that the prince had shown to me?" she inquired.

The two PROJECT surgeons exchanged an empty glance between their visors before the one with the tray responded. "That will come in due time. For now, it is important you take in all the necessary information regarding these new developments."

Somewhat satisfied by their answer, Fiora began to walk, the feeling in her legs not as strong as in her arms. They looked her over intently as she passed by them and left the room, behaving rather curiously for a couple of men she had barely met. Did all members of PROJECT behave this way? All of their actions seemed to revolve around her, as if waiting for certain results from her own movements before going on with their own lives. It all felt so scripted. But she had no further time to consider the men in the blue visors as she found the person they had alerted her to, a middle-aged man with streaks of grey in his hair, the tell-tale blue and gold colors of Demacia on a badge pinned to the light blue shirt he wore. The representative looked at her with wide eyes, still gaping at Fiora even as she stood in front of him waiting for him to address her.

"Miss… Laurent?" His gaze seemed rather fixated on her own visor.

Fiora nodded, disregarding his alarmed look. "I am here because my operators tell me you are to take me to the prince."

"Er, yes, that is correct. My name is Clement, a minor ambassador for His Majesty." He quickly turned around and gestured for her to follow him. "The walk is not long." He repeatedly kept sneaking glances at her right arm, although she could not discern what kind of reaction he had towards it. "High Councillor Kolminye is with him. Whatever the matter they, er, wished to discuss with you, they did not tell me. It is a… private matter."

"Is there something peculiar about my appearance?"

Clement shook his head furiously. "No, nothing! Er, that is, there is nothing wrong. I am just rather surprised that the… surgery has transpired so smoothly."

"Our benefactors at PROJECT are undoubtedly skilled at their field of expertise," she commented. "You must excuse the visor. My eyesight will take a little longer to reach a fully recovered state."

"...Of course," he blankly replied. As they approached a door with the emblem of the High Council on it, knocking on it twice and then three times before backing away. Clement stiffly bowed at her. "This is where I leave you… ma'am."

"Thank you for your assistance, Clement."

The grey-haired man had scarcely disappeared around the corner before the door opened a small portion of the way as the eyes of the High Councillor peered outside, blinking in surprise at Fiora before widening with understanding. "Come in, and make it quick," Kolminye instructed as she opened the door more fully to let the duelist in. Fiora identified a handful of summoners in tow, the prince and the seneschal on the far end of the room, and right in the middle, under close scrutiny from everyone else present, the Ice Witch herself, covered with a billowing dress that glowed from the icy turquoise of her skin. Lissandra had not moved to look at her when she entered the room, looking distantly at a point on one of the walls. Fiora felt like the temperature in the room had dropped a small amount, although the change hardly phased her.

The prince looked at her, completely dumbfounded for a second, before walking around the tables and rushing towards her. "Fiora," he said, looking with confusion into the magenta screen. "Did everything go alright? Are you well?"

"Of course, Your Majesty."

"You can save the pleasantries for later, dear exemplar," Kolminye raised her voice, diverting his attention, but not before Jarvan turned away with a forlorn look in his eyes. "The portal remained open for some time after your dive was finished, Miss Laurent. But last night, the graveyard shift guards found her" - she pointed at Lissandra - "expelled from the other dimension at a rather high velocity and collided into one of the walls. If not for that impact, she might have froze our summoners right there and then, but we were able to prepare ourselves in time and restrain her, forcefully if needed. Fortunately, the witch hasn't offered that much resistance, but there are still many questions for her."

Lissandra turned to Kolminye, anticipating the queries to begin. Fiora had expected some sort of loathing in her expression, but only registered a sense of satisfaction and something rather anomalous. Was that delight?

"How did you separate from the rest of the champions during the time the nexus simulations experienced errors?" Kolminye demanded of her. "The other champions' testimonies didn't record anything peculiar…"

Fiora remembered that match, only a week and a half in the past, although her mental records suggested it felt more like an eternity. The images played back in her head in a vivid, lifelike sequence: the dangerous duo in the Ionian swordsmistress and the hooded lamppost-wielding champion. She had almost overpowered them on her own, remembering the quick thinking and heroic effort she had drawn from within herself to draw even. With that reminder of triumph in mind, she had made it a point to save the positive memory.

"I did nothing purposely to tamper with the systems," the Ice Witch said, the natural haughtiness in her voice making even a confession seem condescending. "I experienced the stasis normal for me when I encased myself in ice. And when I broke free, I did not return to the Summoner's Rift. I was left suspended in darkness until I came across that strange void."

"You are telling me that you were stuck there for several days, alone and in the possible presence of hostile creatures native to that realm?" Fiora shared the summoner's skepticism.

"A timeless sorceress like me has long learned to forsake the material needs of normal humans," Lissandra sneered. "And I feared no evil. I was always under… their protection."

Kolminye did not waste time trying to play innocent. "Whose? The Watchers?"

Lissandra did nothing to confirm or deny her suspicion, instead letting out a chilling cackle. "My deliverance was not some sort of twist of fortune or a byproduct of lucky probability. They will always come to serve their queen."

The summoners under Kolminye's command immediately tightened their circle around her, elemental magic at the ready, but the High Councillor gestured for them not to act. Lissandra equated her wariness to resignation. "You are not to murder a champion of your precious League. And even if you were to break the very rules that keep all these beings together… the Watchers will still come."

Fiora recounted how the anecdotes of the coming of the Watchers had found their way to her, the terror propaganda that Ashe and Tryndamere had done their best to dispel, and even though a chill might have gripped her, her heart kept to its steady beat, safely within parameters. Jarvan reached towards her left arm, brushing against it. His touch had more heat than her surroundings, Fiora could sense, but she felt no warmer. Her full focus returned to the matter at hand.

"Of course they will. You've repeated your silly prophecies enough times." The High Councillor rolled her eyes. "But when? Where will they arrive? Are they coming to the Institute? Do you mean to launch this attack on the Avarosan?" Kolminye continued to bombard the witch with questions, more of procedure than a legitimate hope that she would draw any meaningful conclusions from them.

A wicked smile formed on Lissandra's face as she shook her head. "The answers you seek will come… in time."

An exasperated Kolminye stepped away from the Ice Witch, a fireball impulsively forming in the woman's hand before she quickly extinguished it. "Take her away to one of the old summoning chambers," she ordered the summoners, two of which moved to grab hold of Lissandra and take her out of the room. The sorceress seemed to willingly comply, however, and the entourage began to make their exit. "Under no circumstances is she allowed out."

She then looked to the two of them and Xin an inconspicuous distance away. "Demacians, I'm going to call the other nations to discuss this matter. We meet at the central assembly room in five minutes."

"Very well," Jarvan said as Fiora watched Kolminye pull up her robes and storm out of the smaller meeting room. "Xin, go on ahead. I need a moment."

The black-haired gladiator nodded before he slipped out to follow Kolminye.

When the door had closed, Fiora turned to Jarvan, expectantly waiting for his next order. But he merely moved in front of her, looking at her arm and then her helm before. "How do you feel?"

"Everything is in order," Fiora replied. "I did not notice anything amiss."

The smile he had prepared had faltered ever so slightly. In his eyes she vaguely remembered something akin to empathy, and she did not know how to respond to it. "That's… not what I mean. You were so worried about losing yourself, not like you at all."

"You should have nothing to fear from me," she calmly told him, recognizing the concern plastered on his face. A brief pause. "We should move onto the meeting room. This pressing issue regarding the Ice Witch warrants serious consideration."

Jarvan looked at her with dumbfounded eyes, his puzzled nature soon showing signs of shock and then disbelief. "Is there something amiss, Your Majesty?" she asked.

He shook his head, never letting his gaze move from the screen in front of her eyes. "No… everything's fine. You're right. We should go." He made his way towards the door, opening it so she could pass behind him.

Fiora felt his hand lightly press against her back, and a curious sensation stirred within her, unlike anything she had ever experienced. She tried to pin down the source of this disturbance, attempting to figure what sort of thoughts led to the abnormality.. Through her search, she discovered a short episode of what she assumed had passed between them some time before her operation, a comforting embrace where she lay peacefully in his arms. She frowned at the discrepancy between the feelings she expressed in the memory and the query that she sent to her subconscious, finding inconclusive results. Shrugging, she set it aside and made her way down the hallway a safe distance behind the prince. Nothing useful would come out of the speculation anyways.

After all, they had told her not to trust corrupted memories.

* * *

 **A/N:** A chapter that starts with four pages of Fiora angsting about the fact that that void creature totally messed her up is bound to lead to great material!

Jarvan's dialogue here is probably either the best I've ever written or the worst. I do think it's some pretty great character development for Fiora but then I turn to the rather shaky plot device of "have your usually strong and stoic female lead break down so that the guy can try to patch up her exposed weakness and then she begins to start having emotions." I'm not too sure how much I like writing out what Fiora's problems actually were. Apparently because of this I'm a closet Noxian sympathizer. sorry not sorry.

Writing semi-android Fiora was fun though (thanks to Mach56 for more calculated diction). Probably the most fun I had writing a chapter since The Deconstruction of Creation, Part 2 back in Trinity but no one actually cares about that so whatever.

sorry to all your j4xshyv shippers I definitely don't ship Fiora with Jarvan but this was too good to write up


	17. A Call of Nature

The criminals she apprehended might swear on their graves otherwise, and the destructive way Vi often conducted herself might suggest otherwise, but Caitlyn and all guardians of the law had one solemn duty to uphold, one vow to honor when she took her position as sheriff.

Protect your people.

She had nowhere near the amount of political clout King Jarvan III, Grand General Swain, or the Emperor of Shurima had, but they all operated under the same principle: to guarantee the safety of the people who chose their land in which to live. Her title did give her more flexibility in her authority: the unique position standing out from those three made it so the scope of her influence could change, however. Contrary to what Azir would swear on any oath, Shurima had a fixed area of land, and Demacia and Noxus wouldn't change any time soon outside of a few border squabbles. But while they did know Caitlyn as the Sheriff of Piltover specifically, her jurisdiction changed when the High Council had called upon her to serve their Institute and to assume a leading role in their investigation. It made her responsible for the champions involved, the summoners that volunteered their aid, and the great spectacle that they had promised would amaze and bedazzle everyone there.

It made her responsible for their Diver.

She didn't know as much as she should've on the subject of Fiora Laurent, newly ascended heir to the Laurent noble household and the self-proclaimed Grand Duelist. Cold and unforgiving in conversation at her worst, snarky and prideful at her best, the sniper did know a lot about the formidable rapier she wore on her at all times, having found herself on the wrong end of the blade more than once during chaotic fights on the Fields of Justice. She didn't doubt that Demacia, and by extension, the High Council, had chosen her best suited to the daunting task set for the Diver's position.

But the other world that lay beyond the portal had turned into something more than just odd and bizarre. They had seen the frightening power of its inhabitants for themselves, superhuman power that could apparently even trump one of Runeterra's larger-than-life heroes. Despite the visual problem that came with the unreliability of their technology in that darkened place , Caitlyn had one of the better front-row seats to the menace that attacked that day, second only to Fiora herself. And although no one spoke a word of reproach that day, the sheriff knew that the burden of responsibility fell squarely on her shoulders. She only had to issue the command, and tell the summoners to pull back the Diver before she got herself into irreparable trouble. Caitlyn should've known that Fiora's pride would never make her admit defeat towards a superior opponent. Even though she had seen the duelist make incredible turnarounds in her own battles on the Rift, the matches in which they participated were just that: glorified games, exhibitions.

She had the authority over the Diver. She was responsible for the duelist's safety. When they had managed to pull the Diver out and its attached quarry back into their dimension, the look of despair in Fiora's eyes, something she would never expect from the Demacian, absolutely crushed Caitlyn.

The knowledge that she had failed in her watch haunted the sharpshooter, a heavy weight of guilt that had anchored her down in the small study of the apartment that she shared with Vi. She entrenched herself in a tiny alcove illuminated only by a single lamp perched on the desk at which the sheriff sat, Caitlyn's personal workspace. On that desk lay a scattering of reports that the High Councillor had passed on to her, briefings about all the unusual circumstances around the Institute that all seemed to converge on the Grand Ball. Caitlyn had spent all of her waking hours poring over the details, trying to make sense of all of the different angles presented and often letting out sighs in frustration. But she kept at it, a stubborn diligence compelling her to carry on through any task she started. She would not make the same mistake again.

Caitlyn went through the list for the thousandth time:

The suspicious behavior of the Winter's Claw; the match malfunction and disappearance of Lissandra; the release of Fiddlesticks and the appearance of the otherworldly portal; the alleged reappearance of the Ice Witch in the other dimension; the feral beast that attacked Fiora; the biting winter storms that didn't typically come this far south on the continent; and the latest rumors, whispers about the Frozen Watchers using the new entrance to make their way into Runeterra. Vi and many others had heard the news through the grapevine, cautioning her to take any information from the Card Master with a grain of salt, but Caitlyn simply couldn't just ignore an ominous portent of such significance.

 _Is that the centerpiece? Is that what's tying everything together? The signs do suggest it, but something seems missing…_

A few soft knocks rapped at the door. "Are you in there, dear Sheriff?" a silky voice called to her, dragging her out of her thought process.

Caitlyn sat up and put her hands on the desk to straighten herself; she hadn't realized how much she had slouched over the documents in the past few hours.

"Zyra? What are you doing here?" The plant sorceress had once told her about how the cold could interfere with her symbiotic bond to her human body, at times requiring her to acclimatize herself in one of the Institute's greenhouses. Although the sheriff didn't know the specifics of the process that Zyra had to do, she suspected it wasn't pleasant or quick. As such, she hadn't expected a visit from the herbomancer anytime soon.

"Important news," Zyra said, "that you will want to hear."

The sheriff got up and opened her study door - she hadn't realized how dim her surroundings had become in her fastidious working habits, and Zyra seemed uneasy until she had flipped on a light switch. "What is it?" Caitlyn asked.

"The heart of the forest is calling out." The crimson-haired woman had none of her usual playfulness with her, the small vines and stems along her body remaining perfectly still as she spoke. "Come down to the greenhouses with me. We must move quickly." She didn't seem to have much patience either.

Zyra had already turned around to leave, and Caitlyn hurried to follow the plant woman out of her apartment, only briefly stopping to pick up her rifle leaning against the wall of her study. She noticed that the Rise of the Thorns leaned heavily on her left leg as they walked; Zyra must have cut her environmental adjustment short in order to bring her the important news.

"Now that we're already on the way, surely you can explain even a little?" She treated it like one of the many emergency calls she received when on duty, where her subordinates filled her in on the way to the crime scene.

Zyra stared at her, eyes narrowing. "It concerns the Ice Witch and her ominous band of mythical creatures," the sorceress told her. "Lissandra likes to flaunt her imperfect immortality, thinking no one has lived as long and has witnessed as much as her. But she is blind to the once-dormant powers that have awakened from underneath the earth. There are still ancients in this time that can stand toe-to-toe with her."

* * *

Few people had reason to come to the greenhouses at the southern end of the Institute, designed to keep several types of rare herbal plants from around the continent in a controlled environment so the summoners could harness their restorative properties if needed. The hunters of Kumungu did not develop their love of the jungle by being botanists, and Maokai rarely spent time in any place other than the thick foliage on the outskirts of the Institute. Only Zyra spent even semi-regular time in the building out of all the champions, and only out of necessity than a true desire to come close to her fellow plants.

"The summoners are thorough in their work," Zyra explained to Caitlyn as they entered. The sheriff had to blink a few times before getting used to the dim artificial light, straining to see the specimens that the summoners had collected. "Too precise, in fact, that they did not even pass over the corrupted weeds that make their home on the Shadow Isles." She gestured in a direction and indicated towards the shadows where Caitlyn could not make out what the sorceress intended.

Maybe her discomfort came from the aforementioned tainted plants, but Caitlyn saw where Zyra was coming from. The greenhouse felt superficial, the warm temperature of the interior climate feeling completely unnatural although she knew Kumungu had always existed as a temperate region. The sheriff pulled her rifle closer to her as she zigzagged around several loose plants protruding into the narrow walkways. She felt watched, unnaturally observed, an intelligence examining her. And although she had always considered her fellow champion somewhat predatorial, the plants in the greenhouse had a much more primitive hunter's sense to them.

"I did not bring you here to complain about that, however." Zyra had beckoned her away from the main path towards the left side of the room, where Caitlyn could make out a plant larger than any of the others she had seen in the greenhouse so far. Long thin branches spread out from its center, densely populated in a hemisphere shape. Along those branches she saw multitudes of small red flowers, intertwined with snaking vines that crisscrossed the plant's limbs and giving it its exotic appearance.

"Mwanakuni," the sorceress told her. "In today's language you could translate it as Mother Thornwood. The ancestor from which all magical thorns like myself come. And even this is only a fraction of her original size, back in a time where nature truly ran unchecked without the interference of humans to contain us."

Zyra's story sounded more like a fantasy than plausible reality. "How would the Institute come across something as ancient as this, then? It doesn't seem like it would fit into the types of plants that the summoners bring here."

"In her peak years, the Mother would never have let herself succumb to the feeble attempts of humans to uproot her." Zyra's piercing eyes had begun to light up in fury, earthen power nearly coming off her shaking fingertips. "But as time has gone by and she has lost her influence, she has regressed into a mere commonplace herb whose medicine the summoners realize she produces. That is the sole reason why they keep her in here, to harvest her fruit and wallowing in their ignorance. They do not understand what they do."

The mage sighed. "From time to time I visit her, but it pains me to see her in such a weak state. Her power had always been strong enough that I could absorb some of it to help me survive the winter months, but she does not usually reach out to her descendants unless she senses something on the horizon. You are probably not familiar with the Trio of Nature, are you?"

It pained Caitlyn to say that she hadn't heard of it at all. Piltover school curriculums barely touched on the humanities, focusing on a more modern, science-centric core of subjects, and that left its inhabitants sorely uneducated on departments that most of its leaders had disregarded as 'archaic rubbish.' Even Caitlyn did not see much value in the pursuit of ancient history, of the timeline before the Rune Wars. The truly dangerous criminals did not waste time learning from previous vandals, so she didn't place any stock in the past either.

"I thought so," Zyra said, noticing Caitlyn's lack of response. "The geography of this continent can condensed into three regions: mountain, desert, and forest. The snowcapped peaks of the Freljord, the old empire of Shurima, and the wild undergrowth of the Kumungu Jungle. Each area was watched over by a terrestrial spirit of nature that gave Runeterra the magic that makes the land what it is today."

"So your Mother Thornwood was one of them?" the sniper guessed.

The branches of the large plant beside them seemed to shake slightly. "She sounds quite amused by our flattery. No, although Mwanakuni is a powerful being in her own right, she was but one of the first life forms given sentience in Kumungu. Everything that received this gift during the time that the Nature Trio spread their blessings over the earth is connected to each other through this sentience."

Caitlyn nodded in understanding. "This gift was also given to beings in other regions. So the jungle is linked to the mountains and the desert."

"Correct, but through the years the number of life forms with their blessing have dwindled significantly. The revival of the Shuriman Empire was somewhat influenced by the reawakening of one such being, although neither I nor the mother would know what it is. But there are some important beings that were around in the ancient times whose stirring we would notice if they came forth, and that is why the actions of Mwanakuni alerted me."

The sheriff had a bad feeling of what was coming next. "And those would be?"

"The Watchers. Their primal footprint, if you will, makes a rift in the spiritual forcefield that spreads throughout Runeterra, the map that those with the spirits' gift use to navigate. When they made their first invasion it was through the shared alertness of the old Avarosan that they could defeat them, and even down in the jungle, the elder plants understood the significance of such a battle." Zyra relaxed a little. "And this is where I come to my point. The Watchers are not coming."

Now Caitlyn knew she had become completely derailed from the train of thought. "Huh? But you said that your ancestral plant felt something. Another thing is coming instead of the Watchers?"

"It is something else from our time, a sinister presence that no one was able to identify." Zyra paused, listening to the plant's rustling. "She says it is not of this world, and that it had decided not to make its presence known when it first came into kinetic contact with Runeterra. But the beings of the jungle, the Shurimans, and the Freljordians of old: they all agreed it was something they did not wish to encounter."

The sniper readjusted her grip on her gun, fidgeting uneasily in spite of her usually trained demeanor. "And here I was going to be relieved for a second. But now you're telling me an attack is coming that's worse than the Watchers?"

The sound of rustling in the bushes cut off Zyra before she could respond. Caitlyn immediately lifted her rifle to shoulder height, scanning the thicket for movement. Out of the shadows a small object shot forward at the pair of women, rapidly approaching them. Caitlyn instinctively leapt to the side, rolling out of the way.

 _An explosive?_

She heard Zyra scream; turning around and fearing the sound of detonation filling her ears, she looked to the plant woman and saw a small orange creature instead leaping onto her chest. Her arms could do little to keep it at bay, as it would deftly avoid the wayward grasps and attempts to pull it away.

"Get it away from me, Cait!" Zyra demanded.

"Gnar gabba!" It settled for a perch on her shoulder as the sorceress tried to extend her neck as far away from the yordle as possible.

"I'm afraid I'm not… adequately equipped to do any sort of removal," Caitlyn decided, touting her rifle.

Zyra shot her a despairingly painful look. "Being shot would be preferable to this!"

Gnar turned his gaze to the sheriff, tilting his head. "Ni shuba!"

"Erm…" She had a feeling the yordle didn't understand a word of modern speech, but it wouldn't hurt too much to try. "Gnar, please get off Zyra," Caitlyn beckoned. "She's rather… sensitive."

"You have no idea what it is like to have other organisms crawl on you for decades!" Zyra shot back as Gnar took one look at Caitlyn before springing off the plant woman's shoulder and headed for Caitlyn, who held up her free arm in self-defense and ended up catching the prehistoric creature with it, much to her inconvenience.

"I wouldn't know what it would be like for anyone to crawl to me," the very private woman remarked. Becoming Gnar's new carrier wasn't part of her plan, but under their urgent circumstances, she decided she would let the issue slide for now.

Zyra shot him a scornful look. "Filthy beast. And it dared to invade the Mother's sacred branches! Perhaps if the humans had not cut down so much of the forest in their power-hungry expansion…"

A low creaking sound forked a jagged path through the air, cutting Zyra off. Caitlyn thought it quite peculiar, thinking nothing in the greenhouse could've produced such a noise, but Zyra looked at the large ancestral plant with an expression of disbelief.

"How can you say that? This barbarous wretch does nothing but make messes of things and destroy off on the Fields of Justice." The sorceress crossed her arms in disapproval. "He could only have been worse before his time frozen in ice."

Frozen in time… hey, wasn't - "Zyra, when you were talking about the three regions of Runeterra in ancient times, I just realize you left out a rather important region. The yordles. When did they originate?"

She narrowed her eyebrows in thought. "The residents of Bandle? The settlement is surprisingly old, that much I know, but I never paid the yordles much attention…" She looked to the thorn plant, her face lighting up in shock before turning to face Caitlyn again.

"It is quite difficult to believe," Zyra snuck a quick disgusted look at the yordle, "but Mwanakuni says they are just as old as the other civilizations - the Avarosan and the ancient Shurimans. How such a primitive race could have existed for so long and not have picked up any of the dignity that other landwalkers, I cannot understand. But that aside, it would not be completely surprising for Gnar to have come from that time period, I suppose."

Caitlyn thought back to the reports she had sifted through regarding the Freljord, looking at all kinds of connections to the frozen region throughout the continent. The recent emergence of the Missing Link, who had spent millenniums encased in true ice deep in a mountain cave, had certainly raised a red flag for Caitlyn. Upon his entrance into the League, Gnar showed some recognition upon seeing the Cryophoenix, Anivia, eliciting some speculation that the spirit of winter had placed him in his frozen sleep in the first place, although Anivia denied any personal knowledge of him. She did know of a tribe of yordles up in the north who had been brought to extinction by the Watchers, and had theorized that Gnar must have been one of them and miraculously survived to continue the species. All the mysterious history surrounding Gnar had intrigued the sheriff, but she didn't think the yordle had any connection to the current case. Until now.

"What if Gnar is like your Mother Thornwood?" Caitlyn ventured. "A being dating back far enough in time to walk the earth when the spirits of nature gave life forms their gift of being aware of each other. He'd be able to sense whatever is coming, wouldn't he? And know if we are truly being threatened by the revival of the Watchers or not."

"Wampo!" Gnar exclaimed, happily brandishing his boomerang and adjusting his position on Caitlyn's arm. Zyra looked to the thorn plant as if waiting for confirmation, and sighed before responding to Caitlyn. "She can confirm your question. The yordle was drawn here today because of the sensations that they as ancient creatures both felt. Gnar bears the gift, although I am rather skeptical of whether he is able to understand any kind of danger due to his… underdeveloped personality."

Zyra paused for a few seconds before continuing. "She cannot tell what is going through his mind. But we can see that he does not sound worried at all even though the presence of a foreign invader is inevitably falling upon us. Between the premature yordle and the Mother, who cannot communicate her warning directly to the rest of the Institute, we have unreliable witnesses."

"It will be difficult to relay our findings to the High Council and the other heads of state, that's for sure," the sniper ventured. Her features lit up as she thought of something. "But there should be more people with the gift around, shouldn't there? There are people from one more region that were touched by the ancient spirits."

Understanding flared in Zyra's eyes. "Of course. The Shurimans." She frowned. "But I know that the emperor, although old by modern standards, lived at least a hundred years after the time when the spirits brought down their gifts. If Azir would know anything about this invading presence, he would only receive knowledge if the gift was something he could inherit." Another pause as the thorn communicated with her. "And the Mother says that is unlikely."

"But it's our best bet. We need to figure out what's coming as fast as possible," Caitlyn advised. A vibration in her right pants pocket got her attention; she stowed her rifle behind her back in order to take out the communications device that the High Councillor had given her. She quickly read the message on the screen, an urgent summons asking for the presence of many champions. "And it's probably time we got out of here. The summoners have called a meeting. It seems that they've finally caught the Ice Witch."

Zyra bristled at the mention of Lissandra. "We should be off, then."

"Ookanoo," Gnar chimed in, and the two ladies exchanged a glance.

"We are _not_ taking him with us," the sorceress said adamantly.

* * *

"...and now we bring the issue to you the champions as to how we should address this problem," Kolminye concluded her brief speech, stepping away from the podium on the elevated platform at which she spoke. "What Lissandra had told us was a rather clear threat that she is intending for hostile forces to make their way towards the Institute. Whether or not we can prove the veracity of her statement is not a matter we should be debating."

The crowd of champions gathered in the meeting room consisted almost entirely of those present for the dive into the portal that ended so disastrously the other day, but Caitlyn spied a few new additions: Irelia stood beside Karma, spirit blade hovering alongside her; Darius sat adjacent to the Grand General; Ashe and Tryndamere had actually made an appearance, something that Caitlyn figured had to happen eventually; Azir made an appearance, a couple of actual Shuriman soldiers - rather than their sandy replicas - attending him; Xin Zhao and Garen accompanied Prince Jarvan. Standing in a far corner, the sheriff noticed a helmeted figure bearing a robotic arm, and the memories of the dive came back to haunt her.

 _What did they do to Fiora?_

"Our preparations for the Grand Ball had already included defensive measures, but now we are operating with the knowledge of an open and direct threat to the secure borders around the Institute of War," Kolminye continued. "While our current defenses are quite resilient, and I have every confidence that they can withstand whatever the Ice Witch wishes to throw at us, it is advisable for extra countermeasures." She glanced at Jarvan and Swain. "Out of all the nations gathered here today, however, only Demacia and Noxus have the capabilities of mobilizing reinforcements quickly enough to get here before the appointed time of the ball."

The exemplar stood up, taking a step forward. "Demacia is more than willing to supply an elite squadron of soldiers to come to the Institute's assistance. We have already backed Queen Ashe and King Tryndamere during their struggle to unite their country, and we will stand by them again to face whatever frozen terrors the Ice Witch threatens to bring." Although Jarvan had spoken well, she couldn't help but notice the weariness in his posture and the hollow emptiness in his voice.

A loud cough came from the other side of the seats, where the Grand General stood up, slightly leaning on his cane. "While your quick willingness to assist your allies is admirable," Swain rasped, "we of Noxus are a practical sort, not ones to panic at the slightest hint of rumors or murmuring. The Grand Ball is an event that is supposed to flaunt the prestige of the Institute, a way to express the power of the organization that has abolished war and brought our conflicting nations into a forum where we can resolve our disputes relatively peacefully."

Caitlyn could almost feel the sarcasm dripping from his voice.

"Say that Noxus also pledges a battalion of soldiers to help. What would the people think? They see a grand social event held, for the sole purpose of showcasing what we can accomplish in a time of peace, and yet there are armed soldiers arriving at the Institute. It would hardly put their minds at ease. It would shake the confidence that the peoples of the continent have in us. The Institute has never once had to bring war to its doorstep to deal with the problems of Valoran, and I do not believe it would cower at a simple rumor." The general took his seat. "And there is no reason to do so now."

A silence swept over the crowd. Although Swain had the pleasantness of a vat of toxic waste, she couldn't deny the impact that the rhetoric in his counter-argument had. The mobilization of soldiers to the Institute during the Grand Ball of all things might help them solve the actual problem, but it was a completely absurd move from the outside.

The Frost Archer took the opportunity to stand up and address the champions. "We thank you for the concerns you hold for us, and to the more skeptical of us in the room, we also understand your doubt. But as one who has battled against Lissandra for months, even years, and understand the unforgiving nature of the Ice Witch, I believe I can speak for all the Avarosan when I say that this is not something that we can just dismiss as an idle tall tale. Lissandra does not mince words. Lissandra does not toy with empty promises. She is ruthless and tireless, and if we are to do all we can to protect the Institute that brings us together, then there is nothing that we should take for granted."

It seemed like as good of an opening as Caitlyn would ever get. Taking a deep breath, she stood up. "What if I told you the Watchers are not the problem we are about to have here?"

She could feel the shifting of all the eyes in the room onto her as well as quite a few surprised faces, ranging from Ashe's look of sincere shock to a smug smirk from Swain. The pressure of public speaking never affected Caitlyn much once she had settled into her role as sheriff, but during local press conferences and other appearances that she made in Piltover, she had verifiable facts to go off of. Speaking with a thin web of ancient mystical legends to back her up didn't comfort her in the slightest.

"You've been up to something we're not aware of, Sheriff," Kolminye said. "Care to enlighten us?"

With an immense spotlight on her, Caitlyn began to carefully relate the experience she had in the greenhouse with Zyra, the sorceress occasionally chipping in details or elaborating on the technicalities of the spirits' bond with ancient organisms. Speaking about the concept of a foreign invader making its way to Runeterra did sound rather preposterous to her own ears, although she tried to root herself to the belief in Zyra's genuine bond to her ancestors. "And while our findings are far away from hard proof, there are ways to further strengthen our argument."

She turned to Azir. "Your Majesty, Zyra says that the gift of global sentience extended to the ancient Shurimans as well, although she said you lived at a time past the age of the spirits' blessing. We wonder if there is anything specific you know about this."

The emperor arose, assuming an air of majesty around him even in such a simple gesture. "It is true that I did not directly receive the awareness that the spirits granted to those fortunate enough to receive their gift, although my grandfather had the uncanny luck to stumble into an oasis where the spirit of the desert made itself known to him. And indeed, it was during his reign that we knew of the great war against the Watchers that the Avarosan undertook, a bloody battle from which they barely walked away victorious. From then on the duty of Spirit-Caller, as we had labelled it, became one of the many characteristics that passed down through the royal bloodline, although it had already significantly weakened when it came to me."

"So you cannot sense this foreign presence in the same way that Gnar and this Mother Thornwood claim to do?" Karma asked.

Azir shook his head. "The power is not awake in me - or rather, I have never sought to awaken it. At the time of my rebirth and new ascension, I felt the power of the Spirit-Caller course through me as the blood of my descendants brought it out in me, but it was a special case, where my desperation to come back to this world spurred me to use it to reattain my physical form. I quickly lost this exalted state a few minutes after I found myself revived in the Tomb of the Emperors.

"A such, I can only expose myself to this sentience for a limited amount of timeI am able to tap into this power now if you wish to witness it, although I cannot guarantee that it will provide you any insight into this matter," the emperor concluded.

"I have no objections. Do as you wish," Swain chipped in. "If we can get any tangible proof for or against this Watcher invasion, it will be far better than to bring soldiers in from our countries preemptively."

"By all means," Kolminye said, "show us whatever power you have received."

Azir nodded, holding out his staff and concentrating. The emerald within his breastplate began to glow, and the light in the room began to dim, photons finding themselves drawn to the end of the emperor's staff. It began to shake, Azir struggling to keep control over it, and Caitlyn could feel slight tremors quaking through the room as strong gusts of wind began to come out of the staff, spilling into the open space in the middle of the room where Azir stood as people began rising out of their seats in surprise. The gusts began to spiral, creating the makings of a tornado around the emperor, who stood firmly in place, eyes focused on the staff in front of him. Kolminye and the few summoners in attendance immediately started preparing defensive spells, probably looking to contain whatever rogue magical power the emperor had awakened, but in the midst of it, Caitlyn heard a clear, commanding voice.

"It is all right!" she heard Azir bellow. "I am yet to lose control!" He held the staff higher, the light congregating around it like an electric torch. "Come forth, and expose your secrets!"

The wind picked up in speed and strength; Caitlyn felt like the desk at which she stood would uproot itself and knock her over. Expanding outwards, the tornado surrounded the champions and summoners, trapping them inside the eye, while a second one began to form centered around the end of Azir's staff. The second tornado took a much narrower form, and Caitlyn could see the gusts traveling faster in the smaller twister, sparks of electricity sparking up and down its cylindrical shape. It opened up as it approached the ceiling, a funnel of winds that met the edge of the first tornado. After a while the base of the tornado began to lift itself from Azir's staff and shoot straight up into the air towards the ceiling. Caitlyn feared the spectacle would tear the roof off the entire building, but instead the hot air congregated into a central point above all of them before shooting forth in all directions, pushing everyone back slightly. She had to hold onto the desk behind her to stop herself from falling over.

The wind had gone back into its spiral form, but it had not taken the typical shape of a tornado: instead, the ceiling swirled like the surface of an area of quicksand, white gusts of wind atop the beige ceiling. And in the center of the furious gale, the air had carved a name into its turbulent canvas.

 _Roshan._

* * *

 **A/N:** I had the hardest time writing this, between the new ranked season coming back up, a general lack of motivation, and confusion as to how all the plot lines were going to resolve. A problem I identified too late in this story is the failure to write anything meaningful about Zyra even though I wanted to have her play a major part in it; until now she was just tagging along with Caitlyn just because I wanted her to. But now she has some interesting backstory and kind of links some champions together.

Ending of this chapter is a bit silly, but I hope it still works out. In the next chapter the Grand Ball will actually happen!


	18. A Light Over the Horizon

There were nights when she would only look for the privilege to stay awake.

Sleep made you vulnerable, your body exposed and at the mercy of whatever stalked the lawless streets and alleyways of Zaun long after the sun had set, when its residents could only direct themselves by the capricious light of the moon. And even during the times when she could peacefully doze off in a secluded corner between two buildings and not have the sound of menacing footsteps wake her up, her abusers would follow her into her dreams, horrid memories of previous exploits rushing back to her in gruesome vivid detail.

The sensations of sheer terror usually woke Janna up soon after, and her eyes would burst open only to find herself alone, breathing heavily and often painfully from her compromising position on cold hard stone. It would take her a couple of minutes before she could recover enough from the nightmares to begin moving. It would take her a couple of decades before she could recover enough for the nightmares to actually leave her. And that was if she trusted the diagnosis that the summoners had given her.

When she had heard about a dream-devouring monster captured by the Institute and made a champion that also fought with her on the Fields of Justice, Janna had immediately started to panic. High Councillor Kolminye had prescribed for her a medicine that she took before going to sleep, a pill that would ease her subconscious while she slept, but she held her doubts. To their credit, it had worked for a couple of years: whenever she slept normally she never felt the dreams bother her. Only when she had slipped into unconsciousness from a panic attack did they ever rise again to pay her a visit.

She rarely looked at her attackers - they seldom gave her a chance, as they preferred to take her from behind - but the few times she caught glimpses of them they always bore blank faces, expressionless blurs that dealt with her with all the calculated cruelty of Zaunite robotic technology. This dream was different, however. In addition to the fact that she usually couldn't tell the difference between her previous nightmares and reality, she did not deal with any anonymous assault this time. Janna had clear knowledge of the person disrupting her slumber, but that did not reassure her one bit. If anything, she felt worse, exposed and vulnerable with the protective cloaking of blissful ignorance torn away from her.

The black spectre emerged from the ground, devoid of any concrete shape, its chest rising and falling slowly. The faint breath of an exhale reached her ears. Every logical point in her mind tried to convince her that he couldn't possibly be here, and yet her senses captured him so clearly, so vividly, that it couldn't just be an apparition. But how? He couldn't have passed through the summoners' barriers. At least, that was what they told her.

"N-Nocturne…" A superhuman effort prevented her from choking over that singular word, but she could barely swallow afterwards, the weight catching in her throat and making her reach out into the empty air for an imaginary support to lean on.

The nightmare cackled in its dusky tone. "The avatar of the wind. Even someone who soars amongst the skies frequently ends up the servant of the world of sleep and dreams."

"What do y-you want from me now?"

"They lock me away, so that I may not come to those who wander off the path. But I need not make any advances. Just as everyone before had willingly come to me, so shall you finally." The wispy figure began to advance, billowing claws advancing towards her.

"You can't do this! The summoners… they told me their magic would specifically keep you away!"

Another chilling laugh. "The summoners think they are holding me captive - they, who waste all they have to keep me restrained. It is not surprising that once they are weakened in one area, they begin to lose their control everywhere else."

Janna raised a hand, a feeble attempt to ward him off. "What are you talking about?"

"For an organization that brandishes an extraordinary amount of power, they cannot help but put it all in one place," Nocturne told her.

She came to an epiphany - useless all the same in her situation, and it probably made things worse if she would go down without being able to share the revelation. But still, perhaps she had reached some understanding. "It was you behind those nexus malfunctions?"

"Even I am not powerful enough to harness such energy," Nocturne shook his head. "I owe my… gratitude to another one of the prisoners that the summoners keep in here. One who has suffered confinement longer than I, who has bided its time waiting for the correct moment."

While he spoke, he continued to advance, nearly reaching armslength. Janna had seen the reality of Nocturne's method of predation, and if others feared him as much in the waking world, she couldn't even imagine the stress she would soon experience in her nightmare.

"They say patience is a virtue. Well, I know I have waited long enough for this moment…"

She wanted to scream, but of course he didn't give her even that luxury. Left to watch herself torn apart, strangled by the silence that blotted her out, Janna tried with all her might to push him away, kicking and struggling, but her body felt as if it fought against quicksand. None of her efforts could even slow Nocturne down in the slightest.

Even though she could see him steadily advancing, Nocturne never appeared to come any closer. Janna attributed it to her senses going haywire - she could hardly trust what she saw and felt during the flashbacks, and Nocturne could very well have altered her reality to exponentiate the terror.

But this was different than a twisted reality. The dream landscape seemed to tear itself down as a new one built itself atop the old remains. The static landscape that wouldn't have changed in a million years had begun to blur, and as the images in Janna's eyes began to dissolve into a swirling vortex of ambiguity, she heard a loud and clear voice resonate above the turbulence. She quickly recognized the familiar white walls of the medical wing in the Institute begin to take over her perspective.

"Janna…? Janna!"

She could make out the sweet sound of those bells amidst the strongest summer storm. Her dreams might have been her suffering and her burden to bear, but that didn't mean that she had to bear it alone.

Nocturne did not look amused. "...What is the meaning of this?" he growled, even as his figure began to melt into the whirlpool of sensations lost in translation. Janna could still see him writhe above the surface, fighting tooth and nail, reaching out to her, even as the waking reality became clearer and clearer. A doorway in the background, and the figure of a man dressed in white reaching out towards her.

"Can you hear me?" His voice sounded both right at her side and a horizon away.

An anguished screech came from the nightmare as the horrific dream finished subsiding, the blackness funneling away into one corner like water going towards drainage. "We are not finished so easily!" Nocturne swore as the spectre's reality finally disappeared.

Janna remained paralyzed for a seconds, from both her horrifying experience and the surprise that it had ended so quickly. She pushed herself up with her hands, finding them shaking uncontrollably before Jayce seized them in his firm but gentle grip. His touch, although comforting, still shocked her, and she recoiled in surprise.

"Oh!" Jayce hastily backed away. "Right, I guess I shouldn't be so sensitive."

It took a moment for her to relearn what it felt like to speak again. "No, you're fine," she told him, shaking her head. "It's just… getting a little difficult trying to get my head around what is real and genuine and what is just my subconscious trying to destroy me."

"I did notice something different this time," Jayce offered. "If I might be so bold to point out. Your usual nightmares don't last very long, and once you start tossing back and forth uncomfortably, we can usually tell what's going on and shake you awake. You start panicking and are much more jumpy than usual, but at least you're aware that you're out of it."

Janna nodded in agreement. "So what changed?" She didn't know if she wanted to bring up Nocturne. At least not yet.

"It took you much longer to respond, even though you looked clearly distressed. And yet your eyes were wide open, a fear in them that seemed more like genuine terror rather than a desire to repress… what happened in your past," he explained.

"It's… difficult to talk about," she admitted.

"I understand." He placed a hand around her shoulder - as she tried her best to convince her body to accept his touch - squeezing it lightly. "It seems a lot more severe than usual, but I guess I shouldn't be too surprised considering recent events. It's not just you. The whole Institute's on edge."

Despite his reassurance of not singling her out, Janna still winced at his statement. He did have a point, and Janna resented how emotionally fragile she had ended up. Of course she had voiced such concerns to her friends since the start of her problems which required special treatment, but they had all agreed that she didn't need to worry about being a burden to them. That didn't make her feel any better, however. She slouched back in the bed, ashamed at her helplessness.

Jayce's expression softened as he sat down at the edge of the bed, placing a hand on hers. "Don't look so grim all the time. Your frowns are hardly as cute as your smiles."

In spite of herself, Janna could feel a smile tugging at the edges of her mouth. Even during times like this, he still chose to display some ridiculous chivalry. Only at this time did she recognize the strange choice of clothing Jayce wore. The white that she first saw she now recognized as the suit that he only wore to important social functions. And she knew of only one event in the near future...

"How long have I been out?"

Jayce took a deep breath before responding. "The entire day."

"...I don't want to know what time it is, do I?" Janna shuddered at the thought of her being incapacitated for nearly twenty-four hours.

"Five-thirty in the afternoon," Jayce told her. "Yes, the Ball's started, but I could probably care less about that thing right now. You probably don't remember what happened when you first 'woke up' today, so to speak, but I had to drag you here from my room at five in the morning. After I turned you over to the supervising summoners, I had to wait an hour or so before they gave me some bad news. They wouldn't you let out nearly enough to attend the ball."

If she wanted to be honest with herself, with the way things had gone, Janna had resigned herself to missing out on attending, even though she had felt so excited and hopeful when Jayce had formally asked her to it. It still hurt knowing that her unique problems had restrained her away from the things she held most dear, the joyous times she shared with her friends.

"It's bad enough for me, but I feel even worse for you… I must have ruined your night, getting myself caught up in all this unneeded attention." She averted her gaze, unwilling to look Jayce in the eye.

"Who said anything about ruined plans?" He gently pulled her head back up to look at him. "How about we make a deal. No moping around, and we'll catch up with each other. I'll tell you the story of my day, what's been going on around the Institute, and then you tell me how you're feeling. Then we can make a decision of what to do next afterwards. That is, if you're willing. You did say it was a lot more serious than usual."

"It's okay with me. But I'll let you go first," Janna suggested.

"Alright then. I'm not going to force you to talk about things that you might want to keep private, but…"

"It's always better in the end to get it over with, I know. I just… I probably need a little more time before I'm ready for it." She knew from the nightmare's previous history with its victims that people usually walked away from the experiences with shattered minds, if they even survived at all, and in comparison, she had ended up very fortunate.

"Where to begin…" He stood up again, leaning against the wall next to the bed. "You know, every time this happens and we're not prepared for it and take you to the medical wing, I always try to convince them to let me stay with you. But the summoners are too stubborn and shut their doors on me, no matter how insistent I would be."

Jayce told his story with a level-headed expression the whole time, the previous urgency in his voice retreating into his vocal cords. Perhaps he had gotten used to the position of restricted observer, the friend who worried himself over her safety behind an impassable glass barricade. Janna held back a grimace. No one should ever prepare themselves for something that terrible.

"And when they told me you would need to stay in here for the whole day, that you wouldn't be able to make the ball - I wasn't going to have that. But that was where my emotions got the best of me. I was ready to oppose the entire staff of the medical ward, ready to fight an entire army of summoners if they weren't going to let me stay with you." Jayce shook his head in regret. "And while I was loudly cursing the air and pacing back and forth as I thought of what I wanted to do next, I was very fortunate that someone passed by to put me in my place."

"And who was that?" Janna asked.

"The Fist of Shadow herself." Jayce shuddered as he recollected the experience. "The Kinkou are some really intimidating folks especially with their Ionian ninja garb, so you'd think that when they're volunteering at the medical wing in some civilian attire they'd be a little more approachable, right? Shen and Kennen actually are, to some degree. But Akali? Not at all. She taps me on the arm, and I whirl around thinking, 'Whoever thought to interrupt me when I'm angry is going to get a rude awakening this morning,' but I see her emotionless stare focused right at me and I defuse quicker than an ember in a Freljord blizzard."

Janna allowed herself a small giggle. The lithe assassin never really radiated an aura of power from far away like others of similar professions, like Katarina or LeBlanc, but up close her rigid disciplinary behavior did tend to put people on edge. "You rarely get mad. I'm flattered that you would almost lose your temper for me."

"You can bet that I definitely regretted acting that impulsively when Akali found me," the scientist continued. "'What are you doing?' she asks me, and I was pretty sure that I couldn't just tell her I wanted to see you in the middle of the summoners' operations. I'm stammering while trying to express my intentions in some sort of reasonable way, but then she cuts me off and calmly tells me to leave. 'The procedure for the treatment of the Storm's Fury is likely to take the entire day. I suggest you return at a later date.' Even right now I feel like I would run my mouth off to someone if they said that to me, but at that moment, that unflinching attitude she had… I just couldn't do anything."

"Please," she answered, smiling, "don't get yourself in trouble for my sake. Especially with Akali."

"And that was when I took my cue to head out. But that didn't mean I was satisfied, so I was grumbling to myself when I turned around and starting going the opposite way. The Kinkou must have superhuman hearing or something, because before I could leave, Akali said one more thing to me. 'There is no time to be wasted moping around. Your duty is needed elsewhere,'" Jayce said. "That didn't mean much to me then. It wasn't until later that I had started making decisions based on what she told me. But anyways, when I finally leave the medical wing it's just about eight, and on the way out I run into Vi. She knows us well enough to understand that I'm not going to be in that part of the Institute unless something probably happened to you."

The wind mage made a disappointed face. "Am I that predictable now?"

"You make it sound a lot worse than it's supposed to be," Jayce responded, reaching down to squeeze her hand reassuringly.

"I guess so." Despite her unease at what he had just said, Janna could feel herself slowly relaxing as she listened to his voice while he continued to describe the day so far. She had placed so much faith into the hope that he would become the one to help her break out of the psychological prison that her younger days in Zaun had thrown her into. "Go on, I didn't mean to interrupt you."

"So she tells me she's got half an hour before she needs to start surveillance around the perimeter, scouring the Institute, your typical cop stuff. I'm prepared to rant to her about everything that just happened to you, but we agree that we should get breakfast before anything. Off we go to Hyona's, and I start talking. Now, we both know that Vi isn't exactly the most understanding of people, but she surprised me with how calmly she responded. Like Cait had taken over her deputy's mind for a bit and answered for her.

"She told me how the High Council had a lot of things to deal with already, making sure that nothing would mess with the way the Grand Ball was supposed to go down, and it was probably best that I didn't add another problem to it. Obviously I wasn't too happy about it and told her I'd sooner boycott the entire event than just give up and leave you alone. But then she gave me this really threatening glare and said in a low voice, 'Please, just come, even if you're alone. We need every champion we can get.' I was pretty confused at this point. It isn't like Vi to beat around the bush with words, you know?"

Janna had to agree, wondering why the usually blunt officer had left things vague for him. "Well, it's probably related to the issues that the High Council and she and Cait are dealing with. I know Freljord politics or whatever it's supposed to be can get complicated, but… why would they ask for you to help?"

"Right?" Jayce uncrossed his arms and pushed himself off the wall. "From the way Cait and Vi talked about it, it just seemed like the usual classified law enforcement problems, and that they only needed a small amount of people on the job to handle this. I thought at the most they would get Ashe and the champions close to her involved. But if they want ordinary people - well, ordinary insofar as having no place in any sort of politics - to get involved, then it must be a much bigger issue with a lot more details than we first thought it would be. That did make me change my perspective on the whole thing. I thought that maybe you might've been better off not going.

"I had a lot more things to ask Vi. You can't just say something like that and expect me to take it at face value, but she had the very convenient excuse of having to get to her post, so she just left me there with twice as many questions as answers and a half-eaten rye sandwich that I ended up paying for."

"So did you spend the rest of your day trying to figure out what Vi wouldn't tell you?" Janna guessed.

"There wasn't really much to do after that. I had intended to spend the morning with you, just relaxing in one of the courtyards, being able to talk about things that didn't matter, but instead I'm playing detective now, trying to see if I could find any champions around that might have any insight on the stuff the Institute is dealing with behind closed doors. I hit up the usual suspects - Graves, the Card Master, even some of the Noxians. For once in his life, Twisted Fate wasn't willing to spill the beans on whatever info he had. Clearly he had someone paying him a good amount of hush money, though I can't imagine why they would do so. And the Noxians told me they didn't know anything, although they were probably just denying me information on principle. Before I knew it, it was already three and the ball was going to start in an hour."

"It looked like you decided to attend after all," Janna said quietly. She had never entertained the concept of what would happen if something had incapacitated her and rendered her unable to attend. Certainly she wouldn't want Jayce to waste his entire day and miss out on a fabulous night due to her psychological deficiencies; she would probably even encourage him to attend to make up for her absence. But the fact that he had come back for her meant something else had happened that he hadn't come around telling her yet.

"Hey, even though Vi and I like to give each other a hard time, if she ever decides to be serious enough to ask something of me, I'll probably do it. Even though I felt completely terrible to show up alone, not to mention it would be really awkward at first, I somehow pulled myself towards my room to get myself ready, and then towards one of those lines to enter the ballroom. And that's when I ran into the kid that's actually helping me out right now. Ekko."

Her eyes lit up in surprise at the mention of the spunky, technological improvisionist-prodigy, a veteran of the streets of Zaun for almost as long as she had been. She remembered how shy he had first started out, the excited gleam in his eye when he had first handed over one of his spare subway tokens to her. Janna had thought she would only need him for his utility, at first. But he had continually pitched in to help her out, introducing her to the little gang he had on the streets, and in time she had found herself integrated into the group as that beautiful older sister that all the boys respected, if not crushed on at some point.

Their time together couldn't last forever, no matter how many times Ekko could rewind it. Perhaps his accidental stumble upon the time-travelling implications of his Z-Drive had caused him to lose his sense of growing up. But eventually she came to the age where she realized she had to try to make a new start for herself, in another place that could give her the life that Zaun couldn't. Ekko could never hate her for it, but it seemed he had made a point to seldom cross her when he made his own entrance into the League. And judging by the way he had scornfully looked at Vi for also leaving Zaun and becoming a "Piltie," Janna felt that he had probably resented her too for going over to the other side.

That made his acquaintance with Jayce, one of the City of Progress' poster boys, all the more improbable. "That's… shocking to hear, at the very least."

"Yeah, doesn't make a lot of sense for a Zaunite and me to hang out, does it?" Jayce cracked a small smile. "It was a very interesting meeting, I can tell you that. I'm trying to mind my own business in line, trying not to attract any attention to myself, when I hear that grating accent come up from behind me.

"'What's with the long face, Piltie? If you haven't noticed, we're in a line for a celebration, not a funeral,' he says.

"He's one of the last people I'd like to see. I turn around and give him a quick look-over, and it's pretty plain to see that he hadn't had any experience in formal gatherings previous to this. Shirt isn't buttoned up all the way, tie has a few loose ends. Can't really blame him for growing up in Zaun, though. 'Keep your questions to yourself, Zaunite,' I tell him. Definitely not in the mood to talk to nearly anyone, especially someone from the rival city.

"'Someone's had a bad day,' he says. 'Is that why you're alone in line? Your date dumped you at the last minute? Surprised you still had the nerve to come out here.'

"He couldn't have been more wrong, and as much as I wanted to tell the complete truth and tear him down right there, I decided it was best not to get into a fight at that point. 'That's not what it is. I wouldn't dare make a fool of myself and show up if that was the case.' Then I realized he was alone as well. And even though I was being careful not to get involved more than I had to be, I couldn't resist my curiosity.

"'But that's a lot of big talk for someone who's in the same position as me,' I decide to counter. 'Where's your date?'

"He tenses up all of a sudden, and I know there's a juicy story behind this. 'She's, uh… going to be late. Told me she'll catch up to me once we're both in. Yeah, that's right!'"

The wind mage let out a small smile. Ekko could act pretty tough, older than his age if it came to fighting to protect his friends or on the Fields of Justice, but in interpersonal situations he could barely tell lies to his comrades, and he had never fooled her even once. "He's not a very good liar."

"You said it. I continue to press on, and he finally relents, going up to me and whispering in my ear. 'Promise me you won't tell anyone else. I won't crack a joke about whatever's going on with you in exchange.'

"'How about this?' I try to negotiate a bit further. 'If you tell me what's up with you, I'll keep your secret if you agree to help me out with my own situation.'

"He looked off to the side, thinking it over. I was wondering if he was keeping his Z-Drive underneath his tuxedo somehow and had already done a few jumps through time to get the intended result he wanted. 'Deal,' he finally says, and then starts telling me what's up with him.

"'I didn't originally want to go to the ball. Fancy corporate gatherings, ballroom dancing, not really my thing. I'd only be in it for the girls and the wine, but I had to get myself a date to get in, so I decided it probably wasn't worth my time. I'd probably have more time heading back to Zaun and kicking it with the gang back on the streets. But I got into… well, a bit of a precarious position one day when I did a little… er, detour into the women's locker rooms after a match on the Rift. On some important errands!'

Janna didn't know whether to laugh or feel mortified. Her date had a rather cheeky grin on his face as he tried to continue talking with a straight face.

"At this point I'm trying to keep my laughter in. Errands. Of course I would believe that. But Ekko is dead serious and he tells me, 'Miss Fortune had borrowed something of mine. Really important. Valuable. And I was going to ask for it back one match because I desperately needed her to return it at that moment, but I couldn't get to her before I see her dip into the women's showers. And I'm thinking, "I'm totally screwed, I can't go in there!" But what do you know, I have a device that can turn back time, so all I got to do was rush in when no one is looking, find her bag in the stalls, and make it out before anyone notices I'm there. If I mess up, I can just rewind and try again.'

"'Needless to say, I got caught. In a really bad spot. I had just found out which bag was Miss Fortune's, but I still had to crack the lock. So there I am, poring over the combination, looking over my shoulder every so often to make sure that no one catches me intruding, when suddenly I feel a cold hand grab my arm. And out of literally nowhere I see blue skin materialize and a pair of golden eyes looking at me mischievously.'

"'Evelynn,' I say. Ekko nods grimly. '"You're in big trouble, you know that, naughty boy?" And I don't have the time - ironically enough - to deal with her antics, so I beg her to let me go because there's something I need to do here. But she won't, she runs a couple of fingers up the bottom of my arm and says, "How should I punish you for trespassing in here and threatening to get a peek of the ladies while they're showering?" I try to reach for my Z-Drive but she has control over both of my hands. So I'm sitting there, waiting to get a royal chewing-out once the other girls are done showering, when Eve offers me a ridiculously simple proposition. "Be my date to the Grand Ball. There will be so many delicious targets there that I simply just can't miss their suffering," she says. I'm totally confused, more than a little creeped out, but I have no time to argue because I can hear the water being turned off. "Good, good," she cackles. "I'll come find you later so we can decide on… matching outfits." As soon as she lets go, I fumble for my Z-Drive and hightail it out of there.'"

"He didn't get what he was looking for?" Janna asked.

"Apparently he thought better of it. 'I figured I didn't need it that badly after that mortifying experience,' he told me. 'But long story short, I'm stuck with Evelynn as my date, and although she is pretty hot if you look at her in the right light, she's just as likely to tear my heart out as she is to actually behave like your typical date would. So I really don't want to be here.'

"I think, alright, fair enough, and then I start telling him my story, about how my date wasn't able to come because I had to take her to the medical wing. I tried to keep your condition vague - didn't really want Ekko to know too much, but he only asks me one thing. 'Who's the lucky girl?' And when I tell him it's you, he straightens up, gets really serious. 'This isn't right,' he says. 'She deserves so much better than to be locked up in a hospital bed while the guy that she cares for is standing in a stupid line without her just because some doctors don't think it's safe.'

"For once I would agree with a Zaunite, but after my run-in with Akali I had resigned myself to leaving you alone, at least for the day, but Ekko is trying to convince me otherwise. 'It's supposed to be a special day for both of you. Maybe you two won't be able to attend the ball as a normal couple should, but that doesn't mean you two should be separated on a night like this. Come with me,' he tells me. 'I'll help you out.'"

A small surge sent a warm feeling throughout her body. Ekko hadn't acted this way towards her since the last few months she spent in Zaun, before she announced to him and the gang that she intended to move to Piltover. After they had parted ways, Janna didn't think she'd ever meet a friend so loyal and determined to protect those close to them as Ekko - Jayce would always be a special case, she knew - but her heart soared at the news that he hadn't chosen to sever the ties that they had built up during their time as children in Zaun.

"To finally put an end to this story, Ekko was able to get both of us past the staff at the front desk and the summoners in charge of looking over you. We were planning to wait until the sleeping sensation that they had placed on you passed away, but after hearing you toss and turn in your bed, and signs of struggle… well-"

"Let's just say we took matters in our own hands," a proud voice cut in from the doorway. The couple turned to look for its source, and Janna laid her eyes on a mahogany-skinned boy, familiar spiked white-tipped hair contrasting with his dark black tuxedo. The hextech emanating from his collapsible, custom sword glowed a faint green. The Zaunite seemed to have brought something else with him. Upon entering, she noticed him pull through a rolling platform, a vertical post with a small stump protruding from it. A large hanger perched on the stump, holding up a beautiful white dress: single-sleeved, a modest neckline, and rhinestones decorating the upper arm and chest down to the other side of the gown, where she could make out the faint parting of the cloth that would allow for the exposure of the leg. Janna recognized it immediately - she had picked it out for some other event a couple of months ago that had ended up cancelled, but she kept it with her possessions at the Institute in the event that she would get to use it. How on earth Ekko had managed to procure it, she didn't bother questioning.

She could only look on in wonder. "Ekko… I can't thank you enough."

"Save your appreciation for the dance floor," the Boy Who Shattered Time said. "We're already two hours late since Wonder Boy here decided he'd read you a bedtime story instead of cutting to the chase. But uh, yeah, you should hurry and get into this dress, Windy. You have no idea how much work we had to do, how many timelines I had to cross, to pull this stunt off." He pushed the rolling platform completely through the door, then walked to the other side and turned around. "Go ahead, I won't peek. We didn't bring any makeup or mascara or whatever girls wear, sorry about that. I would probably get lipstick all over myself if I tried to guess what you wanted."

Jayce looked really apologetic. "I know this is the part where you were supposed to tell me what had happened to you, but Ekko does have a point. Something felt really off while were were running around the Institute getting the dress and breaking into your room. It's probably best if we head over there to make sure things are okay. But tell me as much as you're willing to share. You deserve to be heard now."

"I'm mostly over it now," Janna told him. "Your story helped out a lot. You two put in so much unnecessary work for me, I can't help but smile." She pushed the sheets off of her, taking Jayce's offered hand to stand up from the bed. Her legs felt almost foreign to her, the byproduct of spending so much time lying down. "I am going to need a while to get this dress on, but I can tell you the short version of what I experienced while I'm at it."

"Whatever you want, love."

Fortunately, the room had a sliding curtain in the middle, used for separating the space between Janna's bed and the other vacant bed that she had just noticed, so she took the opportunity to pull the platform to one side and pull the curtain across the room's length while she took a closer look at her nightgown. Thanks to her star status as a popular female champion in the League, she never had to worry about finances ever again, and although she always felt some guilt in spending large sums of money, she knew she had to at least get a few nice evening dresses. She began removing the overly large hospital gown that the summoners had placed on her, grateful to slip out of the constricting outfit.

"My memory is a little fuzzy… but I don't think I would want to remember too many of the details," she began. "But it was a lot different than the typical breakouts. Nocturne was in it this time."

Janna heard something thump the wall. "Nocturne? But I thought the summoners had him chained up precisely so he couldn't jump into people's dreams anymore!" came Jayce's angry voice. "What did he do to you?"

Her hands slightly shaking, she began to dress herself in the fabric. "I'm… not too sure. All I remember is him advancing towards me, and I was paralyzed and unable to escape like always. And although you managed to get here in time and stop him, I was confused - more like absolutely terrified - and wondering how he was able to get into my head. I don't even know how much of this is true, but… he said some other being was able to mess with the summoners and distract them, and that was how he was able to get free."

"Sounds like he'll probably at the ball ready to wreak havoc," Ekko chimed in.

"The other being that Nocturne mentioned… he said that it was also being kept by the summoners. Another one of their prisoners. If we do see him at the ball, he won't be alone," Janna added.

"Great," Jayce groaned. "Absolutely delightful. But we'll put a stop to him. I'll personally dent that ghost's face so hard he'll-"

"Chill out, lover boy," the Zaunite cut in. "Leave the ass-kicking to me. You should stay back and make sure he doesn't pull anything onto your girl. She's a real diamond in the rough, you know. Don't let anything else happen to her."

With the screen between them, she felt like Ekko was talking about her behind her back, and even though she knew he had only praise, it still felt pretty awkward. "Er… I'm just about done here," she announced. "I just need someone to zip up the back." She pulled back the curtain, turning around and exposing her back to them.

"I got it," the inventor offered, and with the sound of velcro tightening up, they had successfully completed her outfit. Janna turned around towards the two of them, and their wondrous stares left her a little uncomfortable. "Is everything alright?"

Ekko could only faintly nod, while Jayce took a step forward and placed a hand to her arm. "You look downright gorgeous. If only we could celebrate this just like any ordinary night, it would be perfect, but… I swear I won't let anything get to you tonight. We took a huge risk getting you out of here, I'll make sure you don't regret it."

"I know you won't." She stood up on her toes, placing her arms around his neck and planting a light peck on his cheek.

"Okay, okay, I've seen enough," Ekko interrupted. "Can we get this show on the road now?"

She hastily drew away from her date. "...Sorry."

Jayce reached towards one corner of the room, grabbing a long wooden staff. "For you. Lend us your strength."

She gratefully accepted her caduceus. "I will."

* * *

Everything seemed operating according to plan. That only added to Janna's uneasiness.

Since they had entered fairly late, they no longer had to deal with any lines; on the contrary, since the systems had registered Jayce and her statuses as permitted ball attendees, they only had to walk in. Ekko had chosen to split off from them, looking for cover to hide from the predatory gaze of his own date. Her arm wrapped around Jayce's, she stayed close to him as they navigated the myriad of tables that surrounded three sides of the large dance floor in the auditorium of the Institute that the summoners had cleaned out for the event. The normally dimly lit space now had no corner left in darkness, and she could see the marble Corinthian pillars making up the perimeter of the room, rising up alongside the walls which converged into a circular dome overhead.

If any of the other champions and summoners present knew anything that seemed off, they certainly didn't behave that way. They passed almost uncomfortably close to the Spider Queen caught up in the arms of Vladimir, whose normally thin frame looked significantly larger with the massive cape that the hemomancer had decided to wear. In another section of the room, she passed by Lux in a very elegant blue dress sharing a friendly dance with the sharp-looking seneschal of Demacia, who greeted the couple with a brief nod as they passed by. The light sorceress had smiled and ecstatically waved at Janna, and as much as she wanted to forget about the looming terror all around and talk to her friend for a couple of minutes, she had to settle for a noncommittal wave in response and continue moving on.

On the stage of the auditorium Janna noticed a plethora of instruments: a series of brass instruments in the hands of summoners, who for once didn't have their hoods on and instead wore matching suits and purple ties; to the left, the woodwind group, clarinets and oboes brightly polished and almost gleaming; to the right of the brass, the string ensemble, the only one playing at the moment, with four violins and a very large Ionian harp manned by a very familiar swordsman who had dropped his many-eyed headgear for a less covered appearance that night. Behind them all Janna could make out a row of taiko drums, a group of Ionian monks bearing white masks at their stations. Their leader, indicated by a simple lotus pattern on his robes, looked particularly anxious to start playing, as she could see him tapping his foot to a four-count beat. In the center of them all, the trademark etwahl of the Maven of the Strings stood up on a stand. Sona didn't seem to be there at the moment, probably backstage making the final preparations before leading the orchestra's performance.

"While we're here, it would be a shame if we didn't head onto the floor for at least one dance," said Jayce at her side.

She looked a bit uncertainly at him, eyes flickering between the stage and the tables all around the floor. "Are you sure?"

"I've never been more sure of anything." He took a step towards the floor, turning around and extending his hand. "If I could have this dance?"

Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward and accepted his invitation, putting on her best smile. "You may."

Ballroom dancing came easily to the two, making things much less complicated than it needed to be. Strangely enough, Jayce was the one who had invited her to a few dance classes when she had first enrolled in the university, and he had already seemed to know the basics when they first started out. "You get a lot of experience when you grow up with two older sisters," he had explained. And as he positioned his hands to catch her in the middle of a twirl during the waltz, she felt truly connected to him. Whatever darkness her nightmares, Nocturne or others, had tried to corrupt her with, it didn't seem to matter now.

"How are you feeling?" he asked during a relative lull in the dance number.

"I've never felt anything more wonderful," she replied honestly. "It's… liberating. I never thought such a simple gesture could mean so much… Everything just feels right. Like a part of me wasn't always synched up, like a loose part on a machine. But now everything fits. Symmetry. Harmony."

"Peace?" Jayce suggested.

She noticed the lights rapidly turning off, starting with the stage and rapidly moving down each side of the circular room. It felt like the stars in the skies had ended up engulfed, swallowed up into the belly of a gigantic, galaxy-sized beast.

"OBLIVION," came the rasping shell of a voice. The announcement of his hunt.

The last lights had nowhere to go. The floor went dark.

* * *

 **A/N:** Featuring the most confusing dialogue that takes up about half of this chapter. It would've been a lot simpler to just use Jayce's perspective for this chapter, huh? Yeah, no. Gotta keep the POVs congruent.

I may have to reread over this but I've spent enough time procrastinating (and finding out that the chapter is miles longer than anticipated yet again). Yes Master Yi plays the harp. The story of that isn't coming any time soon.

another edit: also for those who were actually paying attention I moved the date of the concert to the day before the ball. that way Janna isn't actually in a coma for almost two whole days


End file.
